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Comment by lewisl9029 | Hacker News Reader

I'm wondering, is there such a thing as a self-directed 401K where you can control exactly your 401K money goes? If so, would employer matching work for these self-directed accounts as well?

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There are some, but you wouldn't be able to buy shares in the better classes of mutual funds, like Vanguard InstlPlus. Those rely on the whole company buying the same shares to meet the minimum investment requirements.

Why is that? in the UK a SIP (Self Invested Pension) can invest in almost anything even direct investments in commercial property are allowed.

Sounds like the USA's Openednded mutual funds are even more dodgy than the uk equivalents (unit trusts)

My last company had a 50$ per year option that let you buy and sell any stock or few thousand mutual funds. Funds where low cost so it did not seem worth it, but YMMV.

i've worked for a company with a plan that offered something like this, however there was an additional fee on top of whatever the costs were. And like the sibling comment says, you get the public etfs, which wont get any bulk savings(oh how i miss my 0.02% ER institutional shares). You are unfortunately still stuck going through the company the employer chose. Very rarely you can get a plan that allows you to roll over while still employed, so if you did that say, annually, you could self direct then.

employer matching was separate, you and the employer add money, then you choose what to do.

IMHO, 401k should go away and the deductible limits on IRA should be raised to compensate and let people do their own thing.

Hi I'm the founder of Guideline. I just want to be clear in regards to Guideline pricing. There are no additional fees. We are 100% transparent.

Oh, does "this" in the first sentence read as guideline? I meant it as, I had a plan with a self directed option, basically direct access to their full brokerage. Didn't think you had any additional fees

Yeah, some plans offer self-directed brokerage options, with an administrative fee on top of things. Otherwise, with, say, Employee Fiduciary (one of the dirt cheapest Vanguard-backed administrators out there), we chose 40 funds to offer our employees, though almost everyone has just stuck with the Vanguard Target Date options.

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