Updated November 9, 2026 · Independent research from official TSP share prices. Not affiliated with the TSP or FRTIB. We sell no signals and take no money from timing services.

Are TSP timing services worth it?

Short answer: Only if their real, after-fee results beat simply holding an L Fund or your own fixed mix, measured honestly. Most services publish their own track records, often as simple averages that ignore the two-transfers-a-month limit, the noon cutoff and the subscription cost. Ask the seven questions below before you pay.

What the fee costs you

TSP timing newsletters run from about $15 a month to over $1,000 a year. The fee is a guaranteed loss the service has to beat every year before you're ahead.

Yearly fee	On $50,000	On $100,000	On $250,000	Fee, invested at 7% for 20 years instead
$180	0.36%/yr	0.18%/yr	0.07%/yr	about $7,400
$295	0.59%/yr	0.29%/yr	0.12%/yr	about $12,100
$1,000	2.0%/yr	1.0%/yr	0.4%/yr	about $41,000

For comparison, TSP's own fund expenses are a small fraction of 1% a year. The 7% growth rate is an example, not a prediction.

Why most timing results look better than they are

Across all US funds, Morningstar estimates the average dollar earned 8.7% a year over the 10 years through 2025, while the funds themselves returned 9.9%. That 1.2-point yearly gap comes from people buying and selling at the wrong times. Timing is hard even for professionals, and a newsletter's published record usually doesn't include the frictions that cost real subscribers money.

7 questions to ask any TSP timing service

Is every signal timestamped? Can you see exactly when each one went out, so you know which closing price a subscriber could actually get under the noon rule?
Does the record obey the transfer limit? A third non-G move in a month isn't allowed. Results that ignore that aren't results anyone could get.
Is it compounded? Adding up yearly percentages ("+12, −8, +15") overstates what money really did. Ask for the growth of $10,000.
What's the benchmark? Compare to the L Fund for your retirement year and to the C Fund held the whole time, not to the G Fund.
Is the fee subtracted?
Which years are live and which are backtested? A backtest is a rule fitted to history after the fact. Only live, published signals count as a track record.
What was the worst drop, and how long did recovery take? Ask for the worst stretch, not just the average.

Check it yourself

We're building an independent scoreboard that grades every service by those seven rules (method here). Until then, you can test any service's moves yourself: enter its signal dates in the free calculator and compare to staying put.

Got a service's past signals, or your own moves? Replay them on real TSP prices with the real rules →

Sources