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September 08, 2011 at 09:12 AM
Fidelity is the most likely firm to be chosen by investors looking for somewhere to roll their 401(k) assets to.
A report released Thursday by Spectrem surveyed nearly 1,000 investors who had recently made a rollover or had the opportunity to rollover assets, and found nearly one-third chose Fidelity as their IRA provider. Vanguard was a distant second at 11%.
In many cases, there was a significant gap between the number of investors who considered a firm, and the number who actually selected that firm as their IRA provider. While one-quarter of investors considered Charles Schwab, just 7% ultimately chose to roll their assets over. Similarly, Vanguard, which was selected as the IRA provider by 11% of investors, was initially considered by 24% of investors. Fifteen percent of investors considered JPMorgan Chase, but just 4% finally decided to roll their assets to that firm.
Why did investors finally decide to go with a different firm?
Spectrem found the primary reason for investors who changed their minds about where to roll over, was their financial advisor.
“Almost 70% of investors turn to their financial advisor for advice concerning their rollover,” according to the report. “Not surprisingly, in many cases, the advisory firm (i.e. Morgan Stanley, Edward Jones) offers an IRA account solution of their own.”
