Technology is everywhere in 2016. You can turn on your dishwasher via your cell phone from your kid’s soccer game. You can take a picture of the inside of your refrigerator and send it to your cell phone while you are in the grocery store.
Most individual company 401(k) retirement plan participants don’t realize how investment management technology can improve their company 401(k) retirement plan decisions.
Widely available investment management technology can help you preserve your company 401(k) retirement plan account principal in the early stages of the current stock market decline.
Has the next great stock market decline may have already begun? I don’t have the answer and don’t care about the timing. The fact is that all individual company 401(k) retirement plan participants can choose not to fully participate.
You don’t have to buy-and-hold the lousy, underperforming, expensive mutual funds in your company 401(k) retirement plan account.
There is a growing network of independent, third-party investment advisors who provide a fiduciary level of company 401(k) retirement plan investment advice. You don’t have to buy-and-hope your way to losing the last several years of company 401(k) retirement plan stock market gains.
No individual investor wants to lose double-digits amounts of company 401(k) retirement plan principal. Hoping that you will eventually recover your company 401(k) retirement plan stock market losses years later does not fix your stock market risk management problem today.
Let’s say that you wreck your car and suffer severe injuries. A year from now you will have a new car and be fully recovered from your injuries. But if you could avoid the accident and injuries in the first place, would not that be the better option?
The financial media would have you believe that it is perfectly fine to sit through the next great stock market correction. Asset allocation, diversification, and buy-and-hold will eventually work out for you.
Don’t worry. Eventually, you will recover all of your stock market losses. Years later you will “get back to even” on your company 401(k) retirement plan account balance.
I say nonsense. Why would anyone do that? Especially when you don’t have several more working years to add to your company 401(k) retirement plan account.
Find an investment advisor to help you put a company 401(k) retirement principal preservation plan in place now.
The best way to survive the current stock market decline is to not fully participate in the first place.
Ric Lager
Lager & Company, Inc.
