February 14, 2023

Thrift Savings Fund totals have grown spectacularly over the past decade.

The TSP total fund holdings first surpassed $300,000,000,000 - $300 billion - in value in 2012. That was a spectacular feat, coming on the heels of the major downturn in markets in 2008 and 2009.

Since then, the total fund value has continued to increase. By the end of 2016, it was a hair below $500 billion, with a total value of $4.95 billion. It surpassed the $500 billion mark in 2017, and it reached $800,000,000,000 by late 2021, as you can see below, before turning lower in early 2022.

Here are the total TSP fund values since 2012:

Here is the growth in total assets by month:

Here are the year-end total fund holdings from 2007 to 2021. There was a noticeable change in stock fund holdings - particularly the C Fund - compared to the G Fund in 2008-2009. The I Fund also dropped as a percentage of total holdings, that accompanied a slightly smaller drop in S Fund holdings. The significant increase in G Fund holdings compared to only a very slight increase in the F Fund holdings suggests that participants actively sold their stock funds and put the remainder in the G Fund. Had the change in holdings been due to passive market activity (ie, without TSP participants either buying or selling as the market declined), there would have been a more signficant increase in the F Fund as its value rose during this time. The funds had essentially recovered to pre-crash holding levels by the end of 2017, with the exception of the F and I Funds; L Funds maintained a steady march upward, to around 20% of total holdings by this time.

For month-to-month figures and percentages of total holdings broken out by the five TSP (G, F, C, S, and I) funds and the L Funds, see this article.

Related topics: g-fund f-fund c-fund i-fund s-fund investing-styles military-investing