Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) fund performances for 2023 saw high returns for investors, thanks to declines with inflation, consumer spending, and a fall in the unemployment rate, reported Fed Smith.
The C fund performed the best in 2023, with a final return of 26.25%, compared to the S fund at 25.30% and the I fund at 18.38%. For the month of December, the C fund came in at 4.54%, while the S fund finished the final month at 10.45% and the I fund landed at 5.39%. The conservative G fund saw a 0.39% return in December, for a total yearly return of 4.22%.
The performances greatly contrasted those of 2022, where all performances aside from the G fund finished in the negatives. It also ended with greater results than initially expected from analysts, who originally anticipated a recession in 2023 due to high interest rates.
The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), and particularly within core stocks like Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta Platforms, and Tesla, accounted for two-thirds of the gains in the S&P 500 in 2023, reported Fed Smith. One particular stock, Nvidia, went up nearly 239%.
As a result, these profits significantly impacted the TSP’s C fund, as this fund is broadly invested in a wide variety of different companies and does not require investors to have specialized knowledge of the organizations they are invested in. Therefore, even investors who had no previous knowledge of Nvidia realized significant gains by investing in the C fund, said Fed Smith.
Investor sentiment on the stock market also helped in producing higher returns, with more investors adding money to the C fund.
The last time TSP investors saw high gains was in 2021, when the C fund came in at 28.68% for the third consecutive year of positive returns (at 18.31% in 2020 and 31.45% in 2021).
Below is a list of the TSP returns for December 2023 and all of 2023.
| Fund | December | 2023 Returns |
| G Fund | 0.39% | 4.22% |
| F Fund | 3.72% | 5.58% |
| C Fund | 4.54% | 26.25% |
| S Fund | 10.45% | 25.30% |
| I Fund | 5.39% | 18.38% |
| L Income | 1.87% | 8.99% |
| L 2025 | 2.39% | 11.25% |
| L 2030 | 3.71% | 15.76% |
| L 2035 | 4.05% | 16.91% |
| L 2040 | 4.37% | 18.04% |
| L 2045 | 4.66% | 19.03% |
| L 2050 | 4.93% | 20.00% |
| L 2055 | 5.61% | 23.31% |
| L 2060 | 5.61% | 23.30% |
| L 2065 | 5.62% | 23.31% |
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