Fidelity 401(k) Balances Down 27 Percent

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I would try not to. You are looking at a dollar loss, the more important factor is the number of shares you possess. When the economy turns around, the value on those shares will evelate quickly, your bonds will not.

Ed of NH 10:06PM November 25, 2009

Social Security IS a SCAM! See my website:
www.socialsecurityisascam.com
You may call me "mindless", but I would suggest that YOU are CLUELESS.
Ronald Reagan was President in 1981 when 401k plans were initiated, so I have him to thank for making me a wealthy, financially independant man when I turn 59 1/2 in 14 years. (I am looking at around $3,000,000 ($1.5 million with inflation factored in...MUCH better than $1,000 per month from Social Security)).
When my ExxonMobil Savings Plan statement shows up every quarter, and even with the economy currently in the toilet (THANKS OBAMA!), and I look at my ExxonMobil Savings Plan statement; it shows that my 5,050 shares of ExxonMobil stock are worth around $350,000 at today's (May 22,2009) price of around $69 per share.
What is my Social Security "account" worth?
NOTHING! ZERO, ZILCH, NADA!!!
That's what happens when liberal, democrat dolts get after their weak-minded, "follow the crowd", afraid to go against "peer pressure", don't want to be ostracized, sorry selves believe the lying liberal/democrat politcians who tell them that the "stock market is too risky".
Here's the ONLY question one must ask themselves:
If Social Security is so great, why am I COMPELLED to participate in the scam in the fashion of Karl Marx???
I know what you are thinking. Your childish, envious pea-brained response may be, "You have all that money because you own stock of the "evil" ExxonMobil corporation and they gouge people".
So why don't YOU invest in ExxonMobil stock???
Or would you rather wait for a government "promise" of $1,000 per month from Social Security?
Have a nice life, clueless...

Bernie M. R. of NJ 11:20AM May 22, 2009

ATTENTION RE FIDELITY 401k: For anyone who uses Fidelity as their 401k provider, there is a really poorly designed feature on their corporate NetBenefits website that may lead you to make a huge error when Changing your investment elections of your 401k, that could cost you a lot of money.
If you use the drop-down menu and select "Investment Elections", it will bring you to a page where you can select "Change your Investment Elections". Click on this and you get a page listing all of the fund choices and you can enter in whatever percentage of your portfolio you want in which fund. Simple, right? After you hit next and confirm, it gives you a confirmation number and a summary of your investment elections.
What you have just done is changed your investments for all "future contributions" to your 401k. The changes you made will have no effect on your existing portfolio. BEWARE: Nowhere on any of the pages leading to this point say ANYTHING about future contributions. It appears that you are changing the elections in your portfolio. I made this mistake and lost a lot of money. I talked to Fidelity about it and I got the runaround (of course) They don't acknowledge any problem.
To make changes to your existing portfolio, you need to search the site to find an area called Exchanges (?!) where you can move money between the various investment elections. So why does it ask for what percentage of your portfolio you want allocated when making investment elections? Why doesn't it simply tell you that its for future contributions only? I have no idea. It’s a very poorly designed website. Much of the navigation is non-intuitive, confusing, misleading, and lots of redundant areas that make it difficult to know exactly what you are doing with probably one of your most important investments. I highly recommend using a different adminstrator than Fidelity.
-GLH Chicago, IL

Gavin Hasselgren of IL 4:43PM March 26, 2009

Hello,
My wife has her 401k with Fidelity through her work. We were both worried last year when the markets began to turn. But based on all that I had read we decided to keep the funds where they were and try to ride out the market.
This was very difficult to do when we were looking at -26% YTD rate of return average.
I guess my question is...was this the right thing to do? We lost about 10K from the account, and given that this year is looking just as bad, should we keep our diversification in the same funds and not move them to the bond funds that are at least seeing small gains?
All the projections that Fidelity shows for it's funds are negative for the whole year.
Would it be better to transfer all our funds into those safer funds and watch and wait for the market to turn around and then transfer them back into the more aggressive funds?
I realize that doing this we would basically "eat" last years loss...but I'm worried about another year of the same. We only have 19K left in the account.(it was @ 27K)
We still have about 15-20 years till we would consider retiring, but even with that time table I hate to see us lose this kind of money.
Any advice or suggestions would be more than welcome!
Regards,
Stu

Stu of UT 10:32AM February 23, 2009

Are you convinced yet that 401(k) is a nameless code-section-number thing that never was intended to be a substitute for a national pension plan?
Most people, given the mindless way they voted for Reagan and the Bushes, are just dumb lucky that they still have Social Security on the law books.

Muser of NM 4:40PM February 03, 2009