Tag Archives: 401(k)

There’s been lots of talk since late last year about the plusses and minuses of financial engineering, including a debate (see blogs by Felix Salmon and Tyler Cowen) about the overall merits of various modern financial innovations. While it’s …

Of all the generally accepted investment concepts called into question by the recent market environment, it seems to me that rebalancing is pretty close to the top of the list.

During late 2008 and early 2009, rebalancing your portfolio to …

Following my recent post on 401(k) loans, a number of you asked for more detail on the rules around taxes on plan loans and repayments. So I thought I’d delve deeper into the topic of being (or not being) …

One of our readers recently asked about Vanguard’s view on 401(k) loans.

As you might know if you’ve poked around Vanguard.com, we generally frown upon retirement plan loans, to put it mildly. In fact, Vanguard’s intranet for employees recently featured …

For retirement investors, the weak 10-year track record of stocks means it’s time to renew a focus on the economics of retirement. The math is pretty simple, at least at a high level:

Contributions (C) + investment returns (R) = …

My recent blog post on 401(k) accounts has generated controversy among some Vanguard investors.

Perhaps the biggest complaint was that I was trying to distort statistics by focusing on the change in 401(k) account balances during 2008. The evolution of …

The headline from a recent survey conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) says it all: Only 13% of working Americans are “very confident” they’ll have enough money for retirement.

That’s the lowest level on record for the survey. …

A piece that aired last week on “60 Minutes” has gotten some attention and a lot of play from those arguing that a retirement system based on 401(k)s or other investment accounts is fundamentally broken.

But I couldn’t disagree more …

Has your 401(k) become a 201(k)? That’s a pretty common joke these days, as financial commentators look for new ways to talk about plunging markets—and plunging 401(k) balances.…