Rebalance Your 401(k) With This Annual Checkup

With the average American's 401(k) balance remaining unchanged or even decreasing over the past year, it's definitely time to start examining your plan and fund choices more closely.

While at our firm we primarily manage our clients' assets in stocks and bonds, we do make recommendations on what they should do with their 401(k) accounts, and here are the steps we go through.

First, I generally recommend limited fixed-income exposure and no money markets for these assets -- you can afford to take the biggest risks with equities here until you're 10 years or less from retirement. ...