I invest in individual stocks and am recommending active management of
individual stocks. In 25 years of investing, my investments in mutual funds
have, at best, only yielded small gains. Why pay a fee that results in such
marginal results? You seem to agree.

Regarding Fidelity, I am not saying that Fidelity "is not safe", although I'm
not quite sure I understand exactly what you mean by "is not safe". I am simply
saying that Fidelity mutual funds and the IBM 401K funds are not actively
managed. The basic strategy employed is buy and hold. This approach does not
work well in this volatile environment where stocks trade in a range or when the
market continues to dip.

--- In ibmpension@yahoogroups.com, dave49_98 <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> "How can you continue to trust the IBM 401K Plus Plan to manage your money?"
>
> Is the implication that Fidelity is not safe? Fideltiy manages the 401k not
IBM. IBM puts the money in your account and IBM does not manage it.
>
> "Being successful requires active management."
>
> Really??? When you start off 2% in the hole for fund expenses that is a lot to
overcome. You can alsways cherry pick a 6 month period where some active funds
win but you are far better to stick with index funds or ETFs.
>
> --- In ibmpension@yahoogroups.com, "mel_zimowski" <zimowski@> wrote:
> >
> > How can you continue to trust the IBM 401K Plus Plan to manage your money?
From 01/04/08 thru 03/31/09, the Plus Plan lost 34.49% of my retirement savings.
The funds are **not** actively managed and, along with the majority of other
money managers, they measure their success by comparing their performance with
the overall averages. I measure money managers by their ability to grow my
money.
> >
> > The 2009 markets have been very volatile. Being successful requires active
management. In April 2009, I rolled my remaining 401K monies into an IRA and
have been managing the money myself since then. Despite the last three weeks
where I have seen declines, I have still grown my money by 16.06%. Obviously
this requires effort and a time commitment, but being proactive and achieving
some success makes me feel like I have things a bit more under control. In my
opinion, index funds only work well when the overall market is rising. They do
not work well when the market is volatile. My advice is that you either
actively manage your money yourself or find someone to actively manage it for
you.
> >
> > --- In ibmpension@yahoogroups.com, madinpok <no_reply@> wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In ibmpension@yahoogroups.com, artthomp <no_reply@> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > It looks to me like there are no index funds available in the IBM
> > > > 401K (For example an S&P 500 index Fund, a Total Stock Market Index
> > > > Fund, or a Total International Index fund. Is this true?
> > >
> > > Have you even read the list of funds?
> > >
> > > The IBM 401k offers the:
> > >
> > > Total Stock Market Index Fund (i.e. Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Total Market
Index)
> > > Large Company Index Fund (i.e. S&P 500 index)
> > > Large-Cap Growth Index Fund (i.e. Russell 1000 Growth Index)
> > > Large-Cap Value Index Fund (i.e. Russell 1000 Value Index)
> > > Small/Mid-Cap Stock Index Fund (i.e. Russell 3000 index)
> > > Small-Cap Value Index Fund (i.e. Russell 2000 Value Index)
> > > Small-Cap Growth Index Fund (i.e. Russell 2000 Growth Index)
> > > European Stock Index Fund
> > > Pacific Stock Index Fund
> > > Total International Stock Market Index Fund
> > > International Real Estate Index Fund
> > > Real Estate Investment Trust Index Fund
> > >
> > > Most of the index funds have expense ratios of about 0.05%. The
international and real estate funds are higher, as is typical of all funds of
this type - around 0.10% to 0.20%
> > >
> >
>