Typical U.S. Worker Saw 401(k) Lose 24.3% in 2008

In the article "Typical U.S. Worker Saw 401(k) Lose 24.3% in 2008, Lauren Young talks about what investors are doing with the money from their 401(k) that ends up bringing it is down so much in percentage. At the end of 2008, the average 401(k) balance was $86,513 whereas the year before that it was at a balance of $114,337. So what happened to make that decrease of over 20%? At the end of the year, the typical 401(k) investor had actually attributed 56% of their assets in equities via funds and company stock versus a 41% stake in fixed-income securities such as stable value, bond and money market funds. Not only that, but the mayhem surrounding the stock positions going down didn't help in any way. An alarming detail out of all of this is that while 72% of workers held 20% or less of their account balances in company stock, almost 7% had more than 80% of their account balance invested in company stock. That takes the chance of risk to a whole new level.