Studies show that most people don't know what to do about investing. And they leave it that way. If you are a long-term investor, and the market gods favor you, inertia can sometimes work. You do something once and forget it. The inertia may be based on lack of knowledge or confidence in making investment choices.
Advice is a difficult subject.
While employers and plan providers such as Fidelity and others can offer information, there is a fine regulatory line between telling people how to invest or providing education, which is allowed, and what to invest in, which is considered advice, and not allowed. And for younger participants, for whom retirement may be 30 years away, it is an abstraction. It is difficult for someone 32 to think about retirement, so they check a box and forget about it,'' he said. There is a kind of field of dreams about online advice. If you build it, they will come, but, in fact, they aren't,'' Cochran said.