The TSP C Fund returned 11.39% a year and gold returned 11.52%

The TSP C Fund closed at $123.1339 on 9 September 2026, up 11.39% a year since the plan restated every fund to $10.00 on 31 May 2003. Gold compounded at 11.52% over the same months, so one share bought 0.0277 of an ounce at the start and buys 0.0272 today. This page updates daily from the plan's own price file.

The fund holds the the 500 large and mid-sized US companies in the S&P 500 and tracks the S&P 500, so its return over any window is the index return less the 0.035% it charges and a small tracking difference. That charge splits into 0.034% of net administration and 0.001% paid to the investment manager, and the plan publishes both halves rather than quoting only the total.

Concentration is the part worth understanding before treating the fund as diversified. The S&P 500 weights companies by market value, so the largest handful carry a share of the fund far out of proportion to their number, and a participant holding the C Fund alongside an employer's stock or a technology-heavy taxable account may be more exposed to the same few companies than the fund's 500 holdings suggest.

The share price peaked at $17.57 on 9 October 2007 and bottomed at $7.87 on 9 March 2009, a fall of 55.2%. It did not close above that peak again until 26 March 2012, which is 1,115 days, or 3.1 years, spent below a number the participant had already seen on a statement.

That recovery window is the figure to plan around rather than the depth. A participant who retired in 2007 and drew income from the C Fund through the fall sold shares at every price on the way down, so the recovery arrived at a balance that had been permanently reduced by the withdrawals. The fund's 11.39% a year since 2003 is a return available only to somebody who did not need the money during those 3.1 years.

Over 23 years the C Fund compounded at 11.43% a year and gold compounded at 11.52%, a gap of 0.09 points a year that neither side of this argument should be claiming as a win. Measured in metal the fund sat at or above its starting level in 116 of the 280 months on record, which is 41% of them.

The path is the interesting part rather than the endpoint. The fund lost 70% of its value in gold terms between May 2003 and August 2011, did not return to its starting level in metal until October 2017, then ran to 144 by December 2021 before giving that back. Anyone who tells you one of these two assets clearly won the last two decades is reading a start date rather than a record.

This window also flatters gold by construction, because it opens in 2003 near the end of a twenty-year bear market that had left the metal below its 1980 price. The longer comparison, drawn against the index rather than the fund and running back more than a century, is on gold against the S&P 500.

The 0.035% total for 2025 breaks into 0.034% of net administration and 0.001% paid to the manager who runs the index, checked against tsp.gov on 10 September 2026. Part of the administrative half is met by agency contributions that federal employees forfeit when they leave before vesting, which is an unusual funding arrangement and one the plan publishes rather than hides.

A self-directed IRA holding metal charges a custodian fee and a depository storage fee, and the two together commonly run $300 a year whatever the balance sits at. On $100,000 that is roughly 9 times the C Fund's charge, before the premium over spot on the first purchase and before the dealer's bid on the way out. The full comparison is on what a gold IRA actually costs.