The stock market declines of January and February took a toll on TSP investors, with the average federal employee account down by about $10,000 in that period, according to data presented at the most recent meeting of the TSP governing board.
The average account for an active or separated participant under the FERS system fell from $181,279 at year-end 2021 to $171,699 at the end of February, while the average for one under the CSRS system fell from $195,424 to $186,419.
The total amount on investment, including accounts of current and former military personnel, meanwhile fell from $811.7 billion to $769.5 billion, even as the program has a net of new investments of some $1 billion a month.
The C fund suffered losses in January and February of about 5 and 3 percent and the S fund of about 4 and 3 percent, while the S fund posted a slight gain in February after dropping about 10 percent in January. That was one of the worst two-month stretches of performance for those funds collectively for several years.
The overall mix of investments in the program meanwhile changed, with the large company stock C fund falling from 40.3 percent to 38.4 percent of accounts program-wide, while the never-losing government securities G fund rose from 33.3 to 36.4 percent. Those numbers include both direct investments in those funds and the shares of those funds in the lifecycle L funds.
In addition to the investment results, investors transferred a net $7.6 billion into the G fund in February, following a net transfer into that fund of $5.9 billion in January. In both cases, the large majority came from the three stock-based funds—the C, the small company S and the international stock I funds—and relatively little from the L funds and the bond F fund.
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