Tag: 401K

401K, IRA, Roth IRA

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How to deal with 401k when leaving a job?
Some options:
1) Take it out, with 10% penalty, and potential income tax later on. This is usually not recommended.

2) Rollover to an Rollover IRA; or Rollover to the new employer’s 401k.
I did this once: not because of change of job, but because of change of company ownership, I have opportunity to rollover some of the 401k money into Vanguard Rollover IRA in year 2007. That money didn’t recover to the initial value so far.

3) Leave it alone (until 59 1/2 years old).
I did this when I left my former employer in Oct. 2008 (the middle of financial crisis), it turns out to be a good move (or no-op), as the value recovered from the crisis.

Should I open a traditional IRA or Roth IRA?
Tax deduction: IRS publication here.

Tags 401K, IRA, Roth-IRA

401k and Personal Finance video

Is 401k a scam?

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As millions of American workers saw their 401k became 201k since last year, this 401k thing suddenly becomes a hot topic. CBS 60 minutes did an excellent report on this topic.

Watch CBS Videos Online

My thoughts

Tags 401K, 60-minutes, CBS

401k and Personal Finance

Q1 2009 Results: 401k and Rollover IRA

Post author By stlplace
Post date April 1, 2009
No Comments on Q1 2009 Results: 401k and Rollover IRA

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They are all in stock funds.

Old 401k (Hewitt): down 11.8%
Rollover IRA (Vanguard): down 11.78%
New 401k (Vanguard): up 133.97% (this is due to new contribution, I started new 401k in Nov 08, so there is an easy comparison here)

Noticed my portfolio balance in Vanguard is about even compared to the end of 2007, when I started the Rollover IRA. Consider this is after I made signigicant new 401k contribution since Nov 2008. So much for long term investing concept. I need to rethink how to better managing my retirement account.

S&P is down about 11.7% in this quarter.

Tags 401K, IRA, Q1-2009, retirement-account, SP500

401k and Personal Finance

My 401k strategy

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New 401k in Vanguard
Two weeks into working for new employer, today I am able to make my 401k selections from Vanguard. Sweet! It only took me a few minutes to make my choices:

(30%) S&P 500 index fund (VFINX)
(30%) Winsor II (VWNFX)
(40%) International value (VTRIX)

If there is one thing I learned from the recent market drop, that is: DO NOT chase the short term gains, pursue the long term gains instead. Along these lines, I pass over all the sexy names such as Dodge Cox (which lost quite a bit because of Fannie/AIG), Goldman. I am stay with good old Vanguard.

Tags 401K, International-value, Rollover-IRA, S&P-500-index-fund, Vanguard, Winsor-II

401k and Personal Finance CFA

CFA, 401k, Berkshire shareholder meeting

Post author By stlplace
Post date May 1, 2008
No Comments on CFA, 401k, Berkshire shareholder meeting

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I printed out the CFA exam admission ticket yesterday, the test will be hold on June 7. Still got to read up the economics (my least favorite topic). So far I have read “financial management and statement analysis”, “quatitive methods”, “equity analysis and portfolio management”, and I’ve almost completed the “Options and derivatives”. Another thing I need to read is “Ethics”: I intentionally put it off and prepared to read it right before the test. As I get older, my memory is not as good 🙂

401k
I checked out the 401k and Rollover IRA at Vanguard this morning. I was surprised to find, after all these craziness, my portfolio is down 3.77% YTD. One thing I noticed is April was a good month for stocks. All the major indices went up.

Berkshire shareholder meeting

Tags 401K, berkshire-hathaway, CFA-exam, shareholder-meeting

401k and Personal Finance

New 401k, $25 from MasterCard, Staples Rebate

Post author By stlplace
Post date January 18, 2008
No Comments on New 401k, $25 from MasterCard, Staples Rebate

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401k
My new 401k plan did first purchase yesterday. I got 0.47 shares of company stock plus other mutual funds. If this rate holds, I am going to get 12 shares this year 🙂

MasterCard CCF settlement
I registered for $25 settlement fees. Now waiting its arrival to my mail box…I understand it will take a while.

Staples easy rebate

Tags 401K, CCF-settlements, Staples-Rebate

401k and Personal Finance

Fund selections for Vanguard IRA

Post author By stlplace
Post date December 18, 2007
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I picked the following funds (and their weight) for my Vanguard IRA yesterday.

Vanguard International Value 50% (developed market large cap value)
Vanguard Winsor II 25% (US large cap value)
Vanguard Selected Value 25% (US mid cap value)

The first two funds are in my current 401k plan, I found the Vanguard Selected Value through Kiplinger magazine.

1) Performance
I looked at a fund’s 5 and 10 years performanace. I found something interesting: most funds could not beat its bench index consistently. For instance, Vanguard Explorer Fund and its bench mark is listed below:

Average Annual Returns—Updated Monthly as of 11/30/2007

	1 Year	3 Year	5 Year	10 Year
Explorer Fund Investor	5.53%	9.71%	14.24%	9.44%
Russell 2500 Growth Index	9.52%	11.79%	15.93%	6.60%

I found Vanguard Intl Value fund to be an exception. Vanguard Winsor II also faired well. I left out fund such as Vanguard Prime Cap Core, because it does not have 5 years track record.

2) Weight

Tags 401K, IRA, Vanguard

401k and Personal Finance

Two baskets for our retirement accts

Post author By stlplace
Post date December 11, 2007
1 Comment on Two baskets for our retirement accts

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Roll over IRA
In early Nov. I received a letter from Vanguard, it says I am eligible to transfer some of my 401k to an IRA account. I thought about it, the pros and cons, and decided to do it yesterday. Here are my rationale:

1) Ideally I like to keep all my retirement in one place, but one problem is I am not very familar with the new funds avaiable in the new 401k plan. On the other hand, I have been with Vanguard for a while and I know some of the funds are really good (good enough to make me sleep well in the night).

When I say Vanguard is good, I am not only talking about the fees, the performance, etc; but also their brand: it is one of the most respected mutual fund companies in the world. I rememeber a few years ago NY AG Spizer investigated many mutual funds, and I did not heard Vanguard name there (come back to the sleep well factor…).

2) Diversify: this will also allow me to diversify my 401k (IRA); and I can compare the performance of two baskets as time goes on.

Tags 401K, IRA, Vanguard

401k and Personal Finance

New 401k plan

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No I haven not changed my employer or anything, but my company was acquired by a global 50 company this year, and from next year we will have new 401k plan. Currently my 401k is in Vanguard and I am happy with them so far. One advantage with Vanguard is they have the lowest fees in the industry. If all other things are equal (in the long run, I do believe the performance of most large cap stock funds tend to converge), lower fee means better performance for investors.

nest egg pic

(Picture from Money Magazine)

That being said, I also found some interesting things about my new 401k plan: the new funds categories by the investment regions; and the company stock.

Tags 401K, company-stock, Vanguard