About Us

Robert W Dillon, Ph.D. is the founder and chief technical chart analyst of TSPFundTrading.com, LLC. Robert has over 30 years of experience trading the stock market and has developed a mechanical rules-based system for trading the TSP Funds. He has taught at five universities and academic institutions with a total of 63 classes as an Adjunct Professor. Robert has created several investment models and has honed his risk management skills with a focus on investment models designed to make money in up or down markets.

TSPFundTrading.com is a leading professional financial service that provides expert market analysis of the Thrift Savings Plan funds. Our primary objective is to help Federal employees and members of the uniformed services, including the Ready Reserve increase their Thrift Retirement Savings in a low-risk/high-reward manner in both bullish and bearish markets. Our service has been live since Jan 1, 2005. Our main goal has always been to maximize your TSP savings during bull market cycles and protect your capital during potentially unstable market periods.

Many financial advisors (FAs) invest their client's assets using the Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT). MPT is a theory of finance which attempts to maximize portfolio expected return for a given amount of portfolio risk, or equivalently minimize risk for a given level of expected return, by choosing the proportions of various assets. Although MPT is widely used in practice in the financial industry, in recent years the basic assumptions of MPT have been widely challenged by fields such as behavioral economics. One reason is due to the major fluctuations of the stock and bond markets. When both of these major entities are performing poorly, investors will be at high risk using this concept.

In nearly all portfolios of the MPT, a certain percentage is diversified in the Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). This practice is very similar to the principles of investing in the Lifecycle Funds of the Federal government. Stocks and stock funds will always fluctuate over time. Trying to determine their price at any given moment based on economic conditions or fundamental analysis is nearly impossible, and can be devastating to one's retirement savings when the market collapses. It is not unheard of to have a 50% collapse in the market. Some of us have even endured this. For a 50% collapse, it will take 5 years of 15% annual returns just to break even! What we do for a living is provide our expertise and guidance to maximize and protect your returns in all market conditions. We have designed a system for trading the TSP Funds that consistently outperforms the buy-and-hold strategy of investing.

Our Strategy uses a combination of a mechanical system and a rules-based system. The indicators we created for the mechanical system are specific algorithm scripts, each having settings and parameters that are proprietary. The rules-based system sets the rules in changing the signal status/allocations of the TSP Funds.

In addition, we publish a very comprehensive weekly newsletter that contains our technical analysis commentary. However, the allocations we assign to each fund are not based on interpretation of charts, they are based on the proprietary system. Our system is designed to produce results that consistently outperform the buy-and-hold strategy of investing. The buy-and-hold is not a smart way to invest, since it takes years to recover when the market crashes.

The two primary long term trends of the stock market are either a secular bull market or a secular bear market. Secular bull markets can sometimes last over twenty years. The most prosperous secular bull markets were from 1943-66 and 1983-2000. On the other hand, secular bear markets normally last between 8-14 years and sometimes longer. The last secular bear market was from years 2000 to 2009. Since March 2009, the S&P 500 has been in a secular bull market. Within any secular market, there will be many bull and bear market cycles.

The bear cycle that occurred in year 2008 and early 2009 crashed over 57%. The market then experienced the next bull cycle beginning in March 2009. Our methodology and returns are independent of market conditions. Our track record shows a long-term consistency in outperforming the buy-and-hold strategy of both bullish and bearish cycles within secular 'long-term' bullish and bearish market environments. In all market conditions, it is essential that we trade our accounts so that: (1) we protect our capital during a crash within a bear cycle, and (2) continue to outperform the buy-and-hold strategy of investing in bullish and bearish cycles within secular bull and bear markets.

Reasons why it is imperative to trade the stock market as opposed to the buy-and-hold strategy can be viewed in a few charts which graphically show: (1) historical secular bull and bear markets of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, (2) secular markets explained by trends in the price/earnings ratios (P/E) of the S&P 500 Index, and (3) how just by using a simple price and moving average crossover technique applied to a bear and bull cycle of the S&P 500 Index will 'greatly' outperform the buy-and-hold strategy of investing.

Our proprietary system is designed to consistently outperform the market. In our analysis, we do not get stuck on silly things like Bollinger bands. The algorithm scripts we have constructed can be applied not only to the TSP Funds, but to the stock and bond markets, and it consistently works in all market environments. We use the system for our network of market timing services: TSPFundTrading.com, TSPMarketTiming.com, StockMarketTiming.com, QQQTrading.com, GoldSilverSystem.com, and ETFTiming.com.

Our signals are tracked by TimerTrac.com, a leading third-party authoritative verifier of timing performance.

Education and Experience

Robert has three degrees in the fields of science: Bachelor's degree in Earth Science from the University of New Orleans, and a Master of Science degree and Doctorate degree in Geology & Geophysics from the Missouri University of Science & Technology, with specialties in geochemistry, geohydrology, and geophysics. Robert graduated magna cum laude in his post-graduate degrees.

Robert worked for Texaco, Inc. and as onshore developmental reservoir Geologist. He constructed various structure, isopach, and fault plane maps and proposed drilling locations based on his findings. He also worked for the US Geological Survery, National Mapping Division. After completing his masters and doctorate, and teaching at a few academic institutions, he started his own business in the stock market back in 1999. Due to his financial success in the market, he decided to continue his passion in the stock market and help people reach their personal retirement goals.

Robert has a vast amount of experience in highly complex charts. He is also a master fingerstyle guitarist. The combination of his scientific and creative abilities with the stock market using technical analysis, gives him a pure analytical advantage over traditional strategies used by money managers.

Robert holds the highest level of ethical standards and avoids any conflicts of interest. He has watched the markets evolve well before the Internet with all transactions conducted over the phone through a stock broker, gathering information from newspapers, articles posted in the Wall Street Journal, and company reports with outdated charts. In the early-1980's, he remembers creating his own charts by plotting daily stock prices obtained from the newspapers.

Soon after the birth of the Internet in 1983, basic charting software gave rise to technical analysis. Since then, Robert has tested & experimented with almost every style of technical trading. He has extensively traded the market and experienced every imaginable technical and emotional situation with trading stocks. Through all of that, the greatest teacher of course, is the market itself. And while the speed and method of execution may change, the fundamental truths that underly technical analysis remain the same. Fear and greed reflected in crowd dynamics will always be represented within a simple price vs. time chart.

Trading signals may be provided to Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) who manage Assets Under Management (AUM) on a contract basis. Performance results are independently verified by Alpha Performance Verification Services and TimerTrac. Dr. Dillon is not a registered or licensed investment advisor or broker-dealer. His clients are individual investors and professional investment advisors. He has many financial advisors and money managers who use his trading signals for their clients. Business Location: Bokeelia, FL