T$P ICEholes: The Beginning

I thought with the launch of the new website that I would give a brief history and how we got here.  I had always been a seasonal trader looking at seasonality charts and trying to analyze when the best time to buy in or sell out of the markets.  Then I discovered TSPcalc in 2019, five years from my retirement.  I had always been a diligent steward of my Thrift Savings Account and always tried to contribute 10-15% of my pay, but NEVER dropped it below 5% in order to get the match, free money!  I would talk to anyone who would listen about the benefits of seasonal trading, mostly my fellow ICE Officers in my office, but also to my wife, who is NOT a federal employee and really did at times get annoyed hearing about it so much!  Some were easily convinced and would follow me with my trades and others would give me that blank look nodding their heads and say, "Yeah, that's cool".  So, I would go around the office on the morning of trading days and tell the ones that listened, "It's trading day!  I'm moving to the S Fund today."  In my first year of following TSPcalc, I did not follow a set strategy.  I looked at several that I liked overall and analyzed how they traded in each month.  Then I would pick which strategy I liked for that month, provided that it aligned with the previous month's trades.  That year I had an ROI of 38.63%.  Beginners luck?  Having one good year still was not enough to convince everyone, including myself.

In 2020, I thought to myself, I should probably start following one strategy for the whole year and see how it does.  So, I picked a strategy that luckily had me sitting in the G Fund when Covid hit, and the market started dropping!  Not knowing the full extent of how much the markets would (IMO) overreact to Covid and since I was safely sitting in the G Fund, when the market had its initial 5% drop, I saw a buying opportunity, ignored my strategy and bought in.  Much to my dismay, the market kept going down.  And since it had dropped about 20%, I was stuck!  No way did I want to lock-in those losses.  I waited it out for a while and thank goodness the market rebounded quickly, and it didn't take years to recover.  When I was close to recovering my losses, I started following my strategy again through the end of the year.  Luckily, I was able to still have a positive return of 15.74% slightly under performing the C Fund (S&P 500) which ended the year at 18.31%.  Had I only followed my strategy, I would have ended the year with an ROI of 79.45%!!!  What a crazy year and a lost opportunity for an incredible return that we may never see again.  A valuable lesson learned: STICK TO THE STRATEGY!!  At some point during the year, one of my co-workers suggested that we start an Apple iMessage thread to send out the moves since so many Officers were out on detail and we had adopted telework protocols.  At that time, we had about a dozen Officers on the iMessage thread.  No longer did I need to run around to individuals telling them, its trading day!  I also started posting the monthly trades on the whiteboard in my cubicle so anyone could see the moves at any time.

On New Year's Eve 2020, I was on detail on the southwest border working nights and as many of you know, sometimes there just isn't much to do.  I had been wanting to sit down and really look back at 2019 and all the different strategies that I had used and try to piece them together into one awesome strategy to use in 2021.  And that's what I did.  I analyzed numerous different strategies' individual months until I was able to use the best months available that would fit together into one year.  Naturally, this raised a bit of curiosity from my fellow detailers and so I had a captive audience to give my spiel to about TSPcalc and seasonal trading!  Granted it was easier to convince people when I could punch their numbers into the old TSP calculator, and they could see in on the screen what their numbers could look like in retirement.  (Note to self: recreate the old TSP calculator and make it available on the website.)  Needless to say, I started adding fellow ICE Officers and Border Patrol Agents to my thread and it started to slowly grow organically by word-of-mouth.  By the end of 2021, we only had about 30 Officers/Agents on the iMessage text thread, but we ended the year with a 36.19% ROI and word continued to slowly spread.

Early 2022, we had outgrown the Apple iMessage text thread as it only allows 33 people in a single thread.  Therefore, I settled on switching over to the Signal messaging app as it could hold up to 1,000 members (never imagining it would reach capacity) and it was encrypted.  When we switched to the Signal app, I decided to name the group.  I had used ICEholes for our office flag football team (many years ago) and we continue to use it for our office fantasy football league.  So, in keeping with tradition, T$P ICEholes was born.  Plus, I had got sucked into the "WallStreet bets" group on Reddit (hey don't judge, it was during Covid, and entertainment was hard to find).  I chuckled when they called each other "apes" and talked about "diamond hands" on GameStop etc.  So, I hoped that not only would the group be educational and informative, but also, I wanted it to be fun, build comradery and be able to call all of the members ICEholes!  The markets in 2022 were a tumultuous period.  We struggled to keep our heads above water and stay in the green.  Looking back on 2022, it was the perfect storm to demonstrate just how powerful seasonal trading could be.  As the markets dropped, our strategy had us buying in and although we didn't make a lot of money that year, we were buying in at lower and lower prices which means we were buying more and more shares.  And yes sometimes, we sold at a loss, but we stuck with the strategy (well, most of us) and ended the year with a 5.12% ROI.  That doesn't sound like a high annual return, however, when you look at the buy and hold strategies of the other equity funds in 2022: C Fund (-18.13%), S Fund (-26.26%), and I Fund (-13.84%).  By my math, not only is that a 18-31% higher ROI, but the fact that we preserved our principal balances, it was phenomenal.  For those of you who understood the numbers and stuck with me in 2022, thank you!  If you were ever going to doubt seasonal trading and move away from it, that would have been the year.

In January 2023, we had 60 ICEholes in the group, doubling up from the previous year.  At this point, I was one year from retirement and was frequently asked, "Are you going to continue this group after you retire?"  I would reply, "Of course!  I'm going to continue doing seasonal trading in retirement, and it's no big deal to send out a couple texts a month."  This also got me to thinking, just how big can this group grow?  How can I help more of my brothers and sisters in blue?  And that is when I challenged the 60 ICEholes in the group to each invite three fellow Federal Law Enforcement Officers to the group in hopes of hitting 200 ICEholes by end of year.  Oh boy!  I had no idea how much those original 60 ICEholes would take that to heart.  When they went to training, they spread the word.  When they went on detail, they convinced others to join.  When those Officers went back to their home offices, they asked others to join.  A lot of you crossed agency lines and encouraged fellow LEOs from other agencies to join.  The group blew up quickly hitting the goal of 200 ICEholes by mid-summer.  So, I raised the goal to 300, smashed by August.  And we continued to add new ICEholes at the rate of about 100 new members a month and then every two weeks!!  By the end of 2023, we were 960 ICEholes strong, membership 16X in one year, truly amazing!  And now, there are probably not many Federal 3-Lettter Law Enforcement Agencies not in the group.  Oh, and by the way, by end of year 2023, we had an ROI of 35.41%.

In January 2024, T$P ICEholes continued to grow reaching the 1K member capacity of the Signal messaging app!  To experience that tremendous growth in one year wasn't without complications.  Rapid growth like that, on a messaging app, we experienced too numerous of messages, phones blowing up with unrelated content and most likely a drop off of the core message and education.  We couldn't continue on a messaging app and be effective.  I quickly realized also that some people were only there for the market moves, but others wanted the education and comradery.  There has to be a better way...a website!  That would solve both the issues of a place where members could quickly see the strategy and still allows others to ask questions, get some education and still have discussions.  But building a website takes time (turns out, more time than I thought!) and being at capacity in January, could I ask over a thousand ICEholes to again switch messaging apps as a temporary fix until the website gets built, or do I just shut down growth until then?  Ultimately, I did not want to stunt growth, so I asked all one thousand ICEholes to move to the Telegram messaging app.  If nothing else, I figured this would be a true test of members dedication to the group and will clarify if this group has true value.  Needless to say, all one thousand ICEholes flocked in droves switching over to the Telegram messaging app.  Again, thank you!

I retired at the end of January 2024.  I turned 50 in February of 2024.  And now, I am in the process of having the website built.  And despite the frustrations of still being on a messaging app, membership continues to grow and at this writing is hovering at 1,240 ICEholes.  I am excited to launch the website and what the future holds for T$P ICEholes.  There are so many different ways that this group can continue to grow and reach other federal employees including the U.S. Armed Forces with planning for a prosperous retirement and beyond.

If you are reading this, clearly it has been completed and launched under the new branding, however, I will always lovingly refer to members as ICEholes!

Jerome R. Moyer

T$P Money Tree