[Ready4Freddy]

So you've seen a breakdown of where the Enron stock in the plan was, contributory vs match? Otherwise your suggestion that they should have made more conservative investments is well.. speculative. ;>)

A rational person would have taken the free Enron stock, but used their own contribution on more conservative investments.

[wideawake]

Otherwise your suggestion that they should have made more conservative investments is well.. speculative.

It isn't speculative at all.

A match is a match - the same nominal dollar amount of equity for every dollar of cash contributed by the plan owner.

Everyone knows that a single stock is riskier and more volatile than a diversified portfolio of similar stocks. Everyone also knows that a value stock is less volatile than a growth stock.

Therefore it is not speculative to say that if your motivation is preservation of your investment over a short time horizon, it is a financially sound decision to invest in a diversified portfolio of value stocks as opposed to putting all your money in a single growth stock.