Fidelity says record numbers hitting 401k's (bond, IRAs, fund, credit)

[mathjak107]

this certainly wont hold well for the future retirees.

Fidelity sees record number raid 401(k)s - Business - Your retirement - msnbc.com

[chet everett]

Many folks took their depleted IRAs and dumped the dough into houses or cars. Not any smarter.

I really do not know if there is a way to accurately measure the ulitmate end-point for the money taken out of IRAs. Certainly if that is a person's only "nest egg" it would tend to paint a more dire picture then if it were simply folks evaluating the lack of gains and seeking alternate means to secure their savings....

[mathjak107]

What i thought was interesting was that the average 401k had 65,000 in it..

thats way higher then i typically saw before.....

[silverfox]

$65,000 ..... Maybe all the cash is eating a Hole in Their Pockets.

I doubt it though as we have Tough Times for many families, and this is their last stash to draw from.

I think it is really Sad when people feel they have to Raid their 401K and IRA's.

Many do not even know what they are doing along with the consequences.

The other untold Story is the Huge Number of Retirees without knowledge of a decent place to park their fixed income funds.

Many are Going Backwards Rapidly.

[mathjak107]

yep, retirees in their quest for higher yields are taking money thats really short term money and putting it in asset classes and investments that are really only suitable for much longer time frames....

buying corporate bond funds at these low rates and an ugly economic outlook with potential credit down grades can be a disaster when used as a proxy for your cd's.

[AlstraQ]

From the article, "Fidelity administers 17,000 plans, which represents 11 million participants. In the second quarter, some 62,000 workers initiated a hardship withdrawal. That's compared with 45,000 in the same period a year ago."

"Some 62,000 workers" is .56 per cent of the participants. This is just over one half a percent of the total for one company that handles 401k investments.

[Anthony Pepperoni]

The business channels were poo pooing this at length yesterday. They were saying people need to tighten their belts rather than make these withdrawls to maintain their current lifestyle. Futher proof that they're just shills for wall street. Most of these tv people have no clue what regualar americans are going through.