[John Galt's cousin]

“As for people not being up to managing their 401k funds. The current system ties you to a limited number of options through the company 401k plan. Most people would be much better establishing a retirement account with a big mutual fund (like say Fidelity) and letting them assign someone to manage your account for you based on your goal (”I need retire in 30 years vs. I need to retire in 5 years.)
“

There is merit to what you suggest. I was shocked to learn of the fees that the mutual fund companies charge, particularly the ‘funds of funds’. It seems we pay fees for the management of the funds that contain other proprietary funds - all of which charge their own fees.

I've been listening to Ric Edelman and trying to become educated enough to ask the right questions. I have to decide if I should pull my IRA from Fidelity and go with an advisor who will invest me into diverse exchange traded funds (which have lower overhead).

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[CRBDeuce]

I've been listening to Ric Edelman and trying to become educated enough to ask the right questions. I have to decide if I should pull my IRA from Fidelity and go with an advisor who will invest me into diverse exchange traded funds (which have lower overhead).

Ric Edelman put me into the worst investment (~ 1982) I could have chosen for my first IRA. (full disclosure he did mention it wasn't appropriate for the IRA, but he still took my money). ...Recommendation: 1) stay with Fidelity, put most of your money in a Total Market ETF, and learn to 'play with' a small piece of your account to 'juice' the returns; 2) Read "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham; 3) when you get to 'active trader' status if ever, just get Fidelity's ActiveTraderPro (or similar, if you change brokers) stock trading software. Learn discipline early!