I am doing my own 401K investment/research through my work offering. They use Fidelity and I do not want to pay the 4% fee to let Fidelity do the choosing for me. Seems high of a fee. Anyway, what are good websites to use for researching such Mutual Funds info? Is www.macroaxis.com a good website to use?https://www.macroaxis.com/
Any information, insight or tips would be greatly appreciated. I have a lot of catching up to do for my retirement at my current mid-Forties range. TIA.
They charge you a fee to choose a fund that charges you a fee to choose stocks?
Yes, most 401k plans have the appearance of a sad money skimming racket.
Honestly I would pay most attention to the fee rate of the fund. It's pretty clear the having a managed fund does almost nothing in the advent of a downturn, so why pay a high rate?
Historical performance and fee rates should be available from your money skimming... uh, I mean 401k provider.
If you open an online trading account you will have access to a number of screening tools, Morningstar ratings, etc.
aircooled wrote: They charge you a fee to choose a fund that charges you a fee to choose stocks? Yes, most 401k plans have the appearance of a sad money skimming racket. Honestly I would pay most attention to the fee rate of the fund. It's pretty clear the having a managed fund does almost nothing in the advent of a downturn, so why pay a high rate? Historical performance and fee rates should be available from your money skimming... uh, I mean 401k provider.
It is on Fidelity but I fear it is just bias just use them exclusively on their word vs checking several different websites to double check on. Yeah, everyone has different opinions on what is best. My company only offers 29 different mutual funds or bonds to choose from. So I don't think it is a hassle to check elsewhere on info that they have listed.
If I lived in the USA the answer would always be Vanguard.
In Canada, fees tend to exceed returns, but it is a government protected racket.
Fidelity is legally bound to provide the prospectus on the funds they offer you prior to sale. You should just be able to request them.
From there you can use Fool or Google to look up the I'd number to see the past performance history.
Personally I use whatever returns 7%+ year over year with a long history and has the lowest fees. All my Vanguard funds return at least that and have less than a .1% maintenance fee.
I'm guessing you are fairly young still, so I would advise you to also put some $$ into a Roth 401.
Put the minimum into the 401 that you need to get any employer matching dollars that may be offered, and contribute whatever else you can budget for retirement toward a Roth. If uou are happy with the fund's performance you can likely hold them in both the 401k and the Roth.
I recommend you place your money into a passive index fund with the lowest fee possible. Over time you will beat the performance of active managed funds.
(Edit - added the below item)
Link to an article about an index fund vs hedge fund.
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/030916/buffetts-bet-hedge-funds-year-eight-brka-brkb.asp?lgl=rira-baseline-vertical
The important thing in a 401k is getting the employer match. Put it in the retirement date fund that matches up closest to the year you intend to retire, and forget about it.
We have Fidelity for our 401k at my work too - their advisory services are too expensive. The retirement date fund fees, though, are low enough - not quite as low as Vanguard, but your best option given what you have.
I've always liked the way Lipper ranks funds. Look for things returning your minimum over a 7-10 year period and with a management crew over that same period. http://www.lipperleaders.com/ Between them and Fidelity, who links to Morningstar, you should be able to get all the details you need and more. Of course, my dad is kicking but with a Vanguard Four fund account too. Multiple ways to skin a cat.
If it's anything like my employers sponsored Fidelity 401k, and you should be able to get the symbol for the Fidelity funds and look them up on the financial site of your choosing to compare with Fidelity's data.
My Fidelity plan has some index funds (large, mid, small cap) with costs of 0.035% to 0.06% ( Updated on edit to correct numbers). The age based funds are higher cost than the index funds, and poorer performing (at least the 2035 fund).
Edited % after checking.
Both 401ks that I've been a part of have had a Roth option. Look into that as well as the Roth IRA option. If Roth makes sense for your situation that is.
Disclaimer - I've worked on software for the advisory market, but I'm not an investment advisor.
For research, the usual one-stop shop for fund research is Morningstar. At least the basic information on there is free to access IIRC.
There are several other sites that offer this sort of information, but usually they're a little too detailed for the regular investor (as opposed to an advisor) and/or charge rather large piles of money to access the data.
Morningstar and Lipper are both great sources for raw data. I also subscribe to Smark401k at a cost of $200/year, and use their analysis in conjunction with my own analysis of the above noted data. So far, 23 years in, so good.
EastCoastMojo wrote: Put the minimum into the 401 that you need to get any employer matching dollars that may be offered, and contribute whatever else you can budget for retirement toward a Roth. If uou are happy with the fund's performance you can likely hold them in both the 401k and the Roth.
This is decent advise, but it may not be enough to meet some people's desired annual savings totals. A Roth ira is a flexible savings vehicle, but it does have limits. Most notably, the annual contribution limit of $5500 (for those under age 50).
If your 401k has high fees, it becomes important to use all of the available tax advantaged accounts that you can to their fullest. Begin by putting enough into the 401k to get the full match. Then, max out a Roth ira ($5500-$6500 depending on age). Max out an HSA if applicable ($3400 for singles/ $6750 for families). Once those are done, if you still haven't met your desired savings total for the year, and your 401k contributions are below the $18-26k annual limit (depending on age), then I'd put it back into the 401k until you get to the maximum contribution limit.
If you're putting away the maximum that you can($27k- 39,250 depending on age/filing status) and it's still not enough, then a personal investment account through Vanguard, etc is a great option to choose the specific funds you want with very low fees.
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