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Administration April 11, 2002
Stocks Still K plan Investment of Choice
November 4, 2002 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Despite
numerous surveys showing large asset flows out of stocks,
equities are still the largest asset class in 401(k)
accounts, according to a new study.
Reported by Fred Schneyer
The Deloitte & Touche study found that 28% of k plan assets were in domestic equities while a fifth of assets are in company stock. A quarter of assets are in stable value.
The survey found that 85% of plans have formal mutual fund selection processes and three quarters of the plans have formal investment policies. Half of plans evaluate their investments on a quarterly basis while 26% perform such a review once a year.
Also according to the survey:
- highly compensated workers save 6% to 8% in their plan while non-highly compensated employees save 4% to 6%
- some 37% of respondents allow new employees immediate K plan access. About 11% use automatic enrollment.
- some 94% of employers offered matching plan contributions
- nearly 90% of plans with a match allow participants to direct the investment of the match. Among the 11% of plans in which the employer directs the match investment, 77% of those plans invest the match in company stock. About a fifth of the plans said they offered company stock as an investment.
- while employers are more likely to pick up fees for general expenses, participants end up paying for individual services such as loans or investment advice. For example, 68% of plans impose a loan fee on employees while only 10% of plans put that burden on the employer. That compares with 62% of plans paying recordkeeping fees while 8% impose those fees on participants.
- nearly a third of respondents say they’ve swapped out a fund from their plan because of poor performance in the last year.
The survey covered 823 companies.