Invest and Earn
The answer, so far, is the federal thrift savings plan. The 17.07 percent rate is the average annual return for the C-fund (stock index) since it became available to investors in 1988. During the same period, the average return for the F-fund (bond index) was 8.28 percent. The super-safe (no market ups and downs!) G-fund, invested in Treasury securities, had a return of 7.55 percent.</br></br>Those numbers, compiled by Dennis M. Gurtz, a Bethesda- based financial planner, are important since feds are in the midst of their open-enrollment season for the savings plan. They have until the end of July to join the plan or redirect where their future payroll-deducted investments will go.</br></br>Past performance doesn't indicate what a stock, bond or Treasury fund will do in the future, but it clearly shows where it has been. And the C-fund, despite the ups and downs of the stock market, has been on a long-term roll riding the bull market.</br></br>In calendar 1996, the C-fund returned 22.85 percent. In 1995, its return was 37.41 percent. In 1994 (when many people bailed out), it returned only 1.33 percent. For the same three years, the F-fund returns were 3.66 percent, 18.31 percent and minus 2.9 percent. The G-fund track record was 6.76 percent in 1996, 7.03 percent in 1995 and 7.22 percent in 1994.</br></br>Gurtz said the year-to-date returns for the funds are 15.40 percent for the C-fund, 1.86 percent for the F-fund and 2.83 percent for the G-fund. The C-fund was up 6.07 percent for the month of May, and the June numbers -- so far -- look equally good.