The TSP S Fund fell further than the C Fund and got back 0.9 years sooner

The TSP S Fund closed at $115.2095 on 9 September 2026, up 11.07% a year since the plan restated every fund to $10.00 on 31 May 2003. It is the most volatile fund in the plan at 22.2% a year, it fell 57.4% between October 2007 and March 2009, and it was back above the old peak in 2.2 years. This page updates daily from the plan's own price file.

The fund holds every US listed company outside the S&P 500 and tracks the Dow Jones US Completion Total Stock Market Index, which is the completion index built for exactly this purpose. Because the S Fund excludes the largest companies by construction, its return over any window depends far more on smaller and mid-sized businesses, and those tend to carry more debt, more sensitivity to interest rates and thinner cash reserves going into a downturn.

The charge reflects the extra work. At 0.051% it is the dearest fund in the plan, split into 0.034% of net administration and 0.017% paid to the manager, because sampling thousands of thinly traded small companies costs more to run than holding 500 liquid ones. On $100,000 that is $51 a year, which is still less than most retail funds charge in a month.

Ranked by how far they fell, the order is I Fund, S Fund, C Fund. Ranked by how long they stayed down, the order reverses at the top and the S Fund comes first, back above its old peak on 22 December 2010 while the C Fund was still 0.9 years from getting there. Small companies fell harder into the crisis and rebounded harder out of it, which is the same characteristic showing up twice rather than two separate facts.

For anyone still contributing, the difference is close to academic and possibly favourable, since payroll deductions through a long fall buy shares at prices that do not otherwise appear. For anyone drawing income it is the whole question, because withdrawals during a fall sell shares at every price on the way down and the recovery arrives at a balance that has been permanently reduced. That is why 2.2 years and 4.5 years are different risks even when the depth looks similar.

The recent record cuts against the long one and is worth stating plainly. The S Fund has returned 11.77% a year over ten years and 6.12% over five, so a participant who moved into it half a decade ago has not had the experience the 11.07% headline suggests.

Measured in metal the S Fund sat at or above its 2003 level in 178 of the 280 months on record, 64% of them, against 41% for the C Fund and 20% for the I Fund. It still ends the period 7.7% below where it started, because gold compounded at 11.52% a year against the fund's 11.14%.

The honest reading of that is narrow. It says small US companies held their value against gold better than large ones or foreign ones did over one particular twenty-three year window that opens near the end of a long gold bear market. It does not say small companies are a hedge, and the 140% point swing between the February 2009 low and the October 2021 high should discourage anyone from treating this line as a stable relationship.

The 0.051% total for 2025 is $51 a year on $100,000, against $34 for the cheapest fund in the plan, checked against tsp.gov on 10 September 2026. The whole spread across five funds is $17 a year on that balance, which is not a number anyone should be moving accounts over.

A self-directed IRA holding metal charges a custodian fee and a depository storage fee, commonly $300 a year together whatever the balance. That is roughly 6 times the S Fund's charge on $100,000, before the premium over spot on the first purchase and the dealer's bid on the way out. The full comparison is on what a gold IRA actually costs.