The accounts represent a radical shift for many employers. The reason they typically cited was fear that workers would make bad investments and lose their shirts. Some companies also worried that if workers did make poor investments, the employer would be blamed, and perhaps even exposed to lawsuits. More recently, however, workers seem to have discovered stocks and learned to love them. But she said it's not certain that these investors have increased their exposure to that risk entirely on purpose.
Employers try to help workers understand which is which and choose the appropriate option.
They are not just going to list available investments. She said employers expect only about 5 percent or 6 percent of workers to use the self-direction option, and so far that has proved to be the case. Anecdotally, we had seen a lot of demands for funds that really don't belong in the core asset classes. What isn't yet known, though, is whether the workers' view of their own sophistication matches reality. During the market boom, both the news media and the cocktail-party circuit were rife with tales of people who wheeled and dealed in the market and made a killing.