What's Wrong With Your 401(k) -- and How to Fix It

You can always try looking in the printed materials that your company gives you. But that data might be so old that it looks like the bull-market boom times all over again. One acquaintance's company recently gave him a packet of plan information that was last updated in 2000.

And some plans even offer investments that are almost impossible to track. Some portfolios aren't standard mutual funds. They're managed accounts or other private investment vehicles that you can't get information on.

And after three years of losses in the market, who wants to buy an investment blindly?

Solution: Thankfully, you can always go to Morningstar's Web site to research a fund. Or you can even try using a fund company's own Web site to dig up the necessary dirt.

The list of problems goes on and on. Your plan might not offer a range of different asset classes to invest in. If you want a junk-bond fund or a decent small-stock fund, you might have to look for one on your own.

And you should be careful that you don't overdose on your own company's stock, which wiped out the savings of many employees at Enron.

After the Enron debacle, government leaders promised to pass sweeping rules to protect investors in company-sponsored retirement plans. So far, they've done very little.

The fund companies and employers aren't doing you any favors either. So what you do on your own as an investor becomes even more important.