Live tracker · Federal retirement
The TSP F Fund is the only fund in the plan still below its old peak
The TSP F Fund closed at $20.7745 on 9 September 2026, which is 2.3% below the $21.27 it reached on 6 August 2020. It has been under that high for 1,516 days, its annualised return over the last five years is -0.32%, and the bond fund most participants hold for safety is the one asset in the plan that has not recovered. This page updates daily from the plan's own price file.
Share price verified on 10 September 2026 against the plan's own file 4.2 years below the August 2020 peak
Share price
$20.7745Close on 9 September 2026
Below its peak
-2.3%since 6 August 2020
Five-year return
-0.32%a year, annualised to 9 September 2026
Since 2003, after CPI
0.57%a year, May 2003 to July 2026
Years under the peak
4.2and counting
Expense ratio
0.035%2025 total, $35 per $100,000
The record
The F Fund peaked in August 2020 and has not been back
Month-end share price since the plan moved to a daily price and restated all five funds to $10.0000. The long rise is real and so is the flat, falling stretch on the right, which is where most people currently holding the fund actually bought in.
Weighing a move out of the plan? The match tool asks six questions about your account and shows the custodians that take a TSP, with their fee schedules, before anyone phones you. Start the match tool.
Why a bond fund falls
How a bond index fund loses money without a single default
The F Fund is a bond index fund rather than a savings account, and the difference is the whole story of the last five years.
The fund holds US government, mortgage-backed, corporate and foreign bonds issued in the US and tracks the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index, valued at market prices every day. When yields rise, a bond issued earlier at a lower rate is worth less than a new one paying more, so its market price falls until the two are competitive. The F Fund peaked on 6 August 2020, when the 10-year Treasury yielded 0.72%, and by 24 October 2022 it had fallen 18.0%.
No borrower failed to pay during that period and no credit event caused it. The fund did exactly what a portfolio of investment grade bonds does when the rate on new bonds moves from 0.72% toward 4.75%. This is the part that surprises participants who moved into the F Fund for protection, because the risk it protects against is a company failing rather than a rate rising, and only one of those two happened.
The only one still under
How long each TSP fund stayed below its previous peak
Years spent below the previous peak, for every fund in the plan that has had one. The F Fund's bar is still growing.
The I Fund fell 60.9% and came back, and the S Fund fell 57.4% and came back faster still. The F Fund fell 18.0%, a third of what either stock fund gave up, and it is the only one of the five that has not made the money back. Depth and duration are not the same risk, and a shallow fall that does not reverse can cost a retiree more than a deep one that does.
The reason is the same arithmetic that caused the fall. A stock fund recovers when earnings and prices rise, and there is no ceiling on how fast that can happen. A bond fund recovers by collecting coupons until the accumulated income offsets the price loss, which proceeds at the pace of the coupon and cannot be hurried. Starting from a 0.72% yield, that is a slow climb.
After inflation
The F Fund returned 0.57% a year after inflation since 2003
Calendar-year return against CPI-U for every complete year both series cover. Bars below zero are years the fund lost purchasing power, whether or not the share price fell.
The fund has only 3 losing years in nominal terms out of 22, which is the figure that makes it look defensive. Measured against what the money buys, it finished behind consumer prices in 6 of them. 2022 was the worst of those by a distance, when the share price fell -12.8% while prices rose 6.4%, for a real loss of -18.1% in a single year.
Measured in metal
Priced in gold, the F Fund has been above its 2003 level in 2 months out of 280
The share price divided by the gold price each month, indexed to 100 at the start. This is the most one-sided comparison anywhere on this site and it deserves the caveat that follows it.
One F Fund share bought 0.0277 of an ounce in May 2003 and buys 0.0046 now, a fall of 83.5% in metal terms, because the fund compounded at 3.21% a year while gold compounded at 11.52%.
The caveat matters more here than on any other page in this set. A bond fund is not attempting to beat gold and comparing the two flatters the metal by picking the asset with the lowest expected return in the plan as the benchmark. The F Fund exists to reduce the variance of a portfolio that also holds stocks, and judged on that job over the same period its annualised volatility of 4.3% against the C Fund's 18.7% is the number that answers the question.
Method
Returns, volatility and the drawdown are computed on the daily share price file, and days underwater is counted between the peak close and the last close in the file rather than estimated, because the fund has not yet recovered and there is no recovery date to count to. The Treasury yields quoted are month-end values from the Federal Reserve H.15 release for the month the peak fell in and for the latest month available, so they bracket the period rather than describing any single day inside it.
Sources
- Thrift Savings Plan, share price history, retrieved 10 September 2026
- Thrift Savings Plan, F Fund, index and holdings, retrieved 10 September 2026
- Federal Reserve H.15, 10-year Treasury constant maturity, through August 2026
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI-U, through July 2026
- LBMA precious metal prices, through August 2026
The full daily series for all five funds is available as CSV.
The F Fund is the column headed F.
The Digest Perspective
The worst thing about the F Fund's record is the reason its future looks better
· Gold IRA Digest Editorial Team
This is the page on this site where the case for holding metal instead looks strongest, and it is also the page where we are most confident that reading the trailing numbers straight would mislead you. The F Fund lost 18.0% because it was holding bonds bought at a 0.72% yield when rates rose. The reason that hurt so much is the same reason the fund now pays what it pays.
A bond fund's expected return is roughly its current yield, not its past five years. At 0.72% in August 2020 the F Fund was close to guaranteed to lose to inflation, and anyone who had said so at the time would have been right for the whole 4.2 years since. At 4.75% today that arithmetic is different, and the same reasoning that condemned the fund in 2020 argues for it now.
The strongest argument against us
You would be leaving the cheapest retirement account in the country to buy the most expensive way to hold a metal, and doing it at the exact moment the fund you are leaving has repriced in your favour. The F Fund charges $35 a year on $100,000. A custodian and a depository together commonly charge $300, which is 9 times as much, does not scale down for a smaller balance, and buys an asset that pays no coupon at all. Gold's entire return has to come from the price, where the F Fund's can come from the 4.75% while you wait.
What we would actually check
Whether the disappointment is with the F Fund or with having held it through the one period in forty years when bonds could not do their job. What the rest of the portfolio holds, since the F Fund is a variance-reducer rather than a growth asset and judging it alone is judging it against a job it was never given. And whether the number driving the decision is the -0.32% of the last five years or the 4.75% on offer for the next ones, because those point in opposite directions.
We are not a licensed adviser and none of this is a recommendation to buy.
Questions
TSP F Fund questions
What is the TSP F Fund invested in?
US government, mortgage-backed, corporate and foreign bonds issued in the US, tracking the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index. It is a bond index fund rather than a savings account, which is the distinction that catches people out. The fund owns bonds at market prices, and when yields rise the market price of a bond already issued at a lower yield falls. That is why a fund holding nothing but investment grade debt can and does lose money.
Why has the TSP F Fund lost money?
Because it held bonds bought when yields were near their lowest on record and yields then rose sharply. The fund peaked on 6 August 2020, when the 10-year Treasury yielded 0.72%, and fell 18.0% to 24 October 2022. Nothing defaulted and nothing went wrong with the credit. The existing bonds simply became worth less than newly issued ones paying more, which is the mechanism a bond index fund is exposed to by design.
Has the TSP F Fund recovered?
It has not, and the count now stands at 1,516 days below its 6 August 2020 peak of $21.27, or 4.2 years. It currently sits 2.3% under that high. It is the only fund in the plan that has not regained a previous peak. Every stock fund that fell in 2008, including the one that fell 60.9%, has since recovered.
What has the TSP F Fund returned?
3.19% a year since 31 May 2003, which is 0.57% a year after inflation. The recent record is worse than that. Over ten years it has run at 1.51% a year and over five at -0.32%, so a participant who moved into the F Fund five years ago for safety has less money in real terms and slightly less in nominal terms than they started with.
Is the TSP F Fund safe?
It is safe from credit losses and it is not safe from price falls, and those are different things. The fund holds investment grade debt so defaults are not the risk, and its annualised volatility of 4.3% is a fifth of the C Fund's. What it cannot protect against is a rise in yields, which is what produced the 18.0% fall it is still working off. Measured against inflation it finished behind consumer prices in 6 of the 22 calendar years on record.
Can I roll the F Fund into a gold IRA?
The balance can move. A direct rollover sends the money from the plan straight to the receiving custodian and no tax is withheld, while an indirect rollover pays you first, withholding applies, and the full original amount has to be redeposited inside 60 days out of your own pocket. Once it lands in a self-directed IRA the purity rules apply, so bullion has to meet the fineness standard in section 408(m) and sit at an approved depository rather than at home. One thing to weigh first is that the F Fund now yields far more than it did at its peak, so the argument against holding it is weaker today than its trailing record makes it look.
The other fund held for safety, and what it returned after inflation, is on the TSP G Fund tracker. All five side by side are on the TSP fund tracker. Whether to convert a balance into guaranteed income instead is weighed on TSP annuity or rollover.