[USER]

WWYD: After ending my employment, my 401K maintenance fee went up. Although I planned to roll it over, due to the market I’m down $18,000 this year.

Should I go through with the rollover or keep it as is?

[Kevin]

Definitely move it asap. Some investments will be moved directly. Others may have to be sold and moved as cash, then reinvested.

Just do it!

[Cody]

Who is your 401(k) custodian? Fidelity?
Avoid a long “blackout period” by rolling the 401(k) funds to an IRA at the same custodian first rather than sending it to another (which could take weeks).

Call to ask how long that would take.

And don’t forget to invest the funds as soon as the direct rollover settles.

[Rick]

Up as in $50 or $5,000? Can’t judge up without some kind of context.
Do you plan to roll it into a future 401k?

Are you now age 55 or are you considering later when you are age 55 to use the age based option for penalty free 401k withdrawals?

[Ron]

I’d personally wait until there’s less market volatility if you’re going to have to cash out your shares and keep it in cash for the duration of the transfer process.

An example is assuming you have some of your investment in the S&P 500 or US total market type fund, you would have lost the chance of recovering 9% of your loss in one day if you had cashed out Tuesday and had to rebuy investments today.

Of course there’s no indication that the cause of the extreme volatility will go away soon, but I think there’s a chance that the market might calm down over the next months even if the crazy policy shifts and pronouncements continue just due to kind of adjusting to the new news environment.

The other opportunity is if the market got closer to previous highs. Theoretically it could still go up 9% in a day after that, but I’d expect that to be less likely and also the chance of it coming down after the rise would be greater IMO.

Note, if you’re paying a 1% extra fee for three months more thats only 0.25% of the value of your shares.

The market has been swinging up and down 3% in minutes recently.

[Jamie]

Moving it when the market is up is fine. Moving when tbe market is down is fine. There’s not really a difference.

However, when the market is volatile, there is a larger risk of the timing working against you.

I’d probably wait a bit to see if things stabilize because it can be a full week for a transfer to go through.

[Mark]

Why would u leave it and pay more in fees. Doesn’t matter what the market is doing.

Ur doing on in kind transfer.

[Prasad]

Check if you can do “in kind” transfer electronically from your 401k custodian to new custodian, so you don’t need to liquidate anything.

Is the loss of $18K due to the market or the fees?

[Author]

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