To clarify getting advice includes individual advice, professionally managed portfolios or target date funds. I believe the best option is professionally managed portfolios which will become more conservative as we age. Remember your portfolio is like a bar of soap the more you touch it the smaller it gets.

While the median annual return was 2.92 percentage points higher (net of all fees ) for those getting advice during the five years studied, it was only 2.19 percentage points higher if the stock market rebound year of 2009 is excluded. A large part of that 2009 effect was created by boomers who abandoned stocks at the bottom.  “Reverse market timing,’’ is the ways Pamela Hess, director of retirement research at Aon Hewitt described it in a phone interview last week.  “The near retirement cohort has become very loss adverse. They’re gun shy. They get out after the market has digested a lot bad news,’’ echoed Chris Jones, chief investment officer of Financial Engines, who was also on the call.The share of 55 to 60-year-old workers with less than 5% of their money in stocks rose from 9% at the end of 2007 to 14% at the end of 2008. Meanwhile, for those 60 plus, the percentage rose from 13% to 18% and for the 50 to 55 age cohort, it climbed from 7% to 11%.

The most successful plans will provide professionally managed portfolios only. This allows employees only to choose the risk level of their account. Many experts consider this a ‘pension fund‘ like plan which leads to successful retirements. This, after all, is everyone’s goal.

Please comment or call to discuss how this would work for your company.