The Safest Place To Park Your Funds Short-Term in Every Major 401(k) Plan

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2 days ago

The recent stock market volatility may have spooked some investors and prompted them to seek safer assets. While risk tolerance is personal, it's important to not make any rash decisions when it comes to investing, especially when dealing with long-term investing for retirement, like within your 401(k).
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That said, if you are looking for a short-term, safe place to park your funds for any reason, such as if you changed jobs and need time to decide where to invest or you're nearing retirement and want to reduce volatility, essentially every major 401(k) plan offers at least one stable option to store cash. Below is the safest place to park your funds short-term in every major 401(k) plan.
'The safest place to park cash in a 401(k) is typically a money market fund or any fund that is designed to preserve capital,' said Amber Schiffert, co-founder of Tara Wealth.
A money market fund generally invests in high-quality, liquid assets such as short-term Treasuries, enabling you to earn a small return without taking on much risk, as the price of the fund is always meant to stay at $1 per share, with only the yield fluctuating.
Note that these funds might not be directly available within a 401(k), but instead, many retirement plans offer what are known as cash sweep accounts. These accounts move your uninvested cash into money market funds or other low-risk, interest-bearing vehicles, like an FDIC-insured bank account.
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'This said, we generally wouldn't recommend strategically parking cash in your 401(k),' Schiffert said. While it's not necessarily a bad choice in terms of losing money, inflation could eat into your cash, not to mention missing out on potential long-term gains.
'The job of a 401(k) is to support your long-term retirement goals, not act as an emergency fund or a source for short-term purchases. Your financial plan should align your accounts with their intended purpose. If you're risk-averse or have a shorter time horizon, we'd recommend adjusting your overall asset allocation rather than moving to cash without a clear strategy,' Schiffert added.
Keep in mind, however, that you might already have more funds parked in cash-like accounts than you realize.
'Most plans also offer target date funds in their lineup, which generally hold a small allocation to cash or cash equivalents, usually between 1% and 5%, depending on the target retirement year. For example, if you have $1 million in a target date fund, that could mean you already have $10,000 to $50,000 sitting in cash inside your portfolio,' Schiffert said.
That cash buffer can provide some flexibility to these funds and might reduce the temptation for you to try de-risk on your own.
Although putting money into a relatively safe vehicle like a money market fund typically isn't advisable for a long-term retirement strategy, there are situations where it could make sense to move some money there.
For example, 'if someone is a year or two from retirement, with little or no cash reserves outside their 401(k), it might make sense to move a portion of their portfolio into cash or a cash equivalent. How long your money lasts in retirement can be greatly impacted by sequence of returns risk, so having one to two years of expenses in cash before retirement can be smart,' Schiffert said.
'This serves as an emergency reserve and as a buffer against market volatility, especially if you retire during a period of heightened uncertainty like we're seeing today,' she added.
Still, this cash buffer would ideally be in a high-yield savings account while your retirement assets can stay invested, 'but if that's not the case, increasing your cash allocation within a traditional pre-tax 401(k) might make sense,' Schiffert said.
'If your plan includes traditional/pre-tax and Roth contributions, it's generally better to keep the Roth portion fully invested. Roth dollars grow tax-free, distributions are generally tax-free and they aren't subject to required minimum distributions, so you want them compounding as long as possible,' Schiffert said.
For others, though, especially those with a long time until retirement, parking cash in a 401(k), such as within a money market fund or cash sweep account, probably isn't advisable unless it's simply part of a transfer and you'll invest those funds as soon as possible.
But if you're considering the move because you're fearing what will happen in the stock market, for example, that probably isn't the way to go.
'We usually see people tempted to move to cash when there's heightened market uncertainty. We encourage people to remember, there's always going to be market volatility. That's just the nature of the stock market. It's best not to make decisions in a vacuum and instead, zoom out and think big picture,' Schiffert said.
'At the end of the day, the market is resilient. If your portfolio is already aligned with your risk tolerance, time horizon and goals, then there's usually no real reason to make sweeping changes,' she added.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: The Safest Place To Park Your Funds Short-Term in Every Major 401(k) Plan