Bail Out Bumming Out My 401K

Four times a year our quarterly statement from Fidelity, who manages our 401 K program comes in the mail. For years now it is just a cursory glance when we open the envelope. We trust the company to wisely invest our funds, we have had the account for years and years now. Pretty much the only active participation we have made as far as fund allocations, was back in 1999 we had everything moved over to a 'safer' portfolio choice. Since that time, since we have not requested any changes, we assumed our assets were supposed to still be mainly allocated to bonds. Now I recall some mention about portfolio management package changes, but no mention of any major changes that we should have been concerned with.

Well as I have mentioned, each time the statement arrives, we check it, and generally there is a gain of at least one to three percent over the quarter. Yearly it has averaged a six to eight per cent increase. Since our move in 1999, the account has never dropped. Well we got our December statement, and we opened it, for our cursory glance you know. We spent the next three hours on the phone and online with account representatives. The account had lost 8.6 %, from just August 8th through December 1st! At this rate it would only take ten months for our life savings to be gone!

We still do not know how or why it happened, and the company was no help whatsoever! I was given a run around and was told it had something to do with the Big Bail Out at least three times. So my recommenndation to everybody, make sure you open your 401K statements and take a look this month.

I am interested in response from fellow 401Ker's who have experienced a similar heart failure this month, or any experts out there that can offer professional advice. We would welcome any and all input. As I said this is the first time ever for this account to lose money, but an almost ten percent drop is outrageous. Input , need more input! The way they have the portfolio choices designed you have no choice, they are backing the corporates with what appears to be no regard for us, their clients. Is there a 401K program that lets you 100 % choose your allocations? They have a lot of the assets currently allocated to corporate stocks, in our case 41%, I am sure a lot of Ford and GM.