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Retirement Planning > Retirement Investing

Here are the top retirement investment vehicles from Q3 2014

By Warren S. Hersch

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U.S. retirement assets reached $24.2 trillion at the close of the 3rd quarter of 2014, a total unchanged from the end of the second quarter, according to new research.

The Investment Company Institute discloses this finding in a tabulation of financial data from ICI and other sources. They include the Federal Reserve Board, Department of Labor, National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators, American Council of Life Insurers and Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income Division. ICI reports that retirement assets accounted for more than one-third (36 percent) of all household financial assets in the U.S. at the end of the third quarter of 2014.

Assets in individual retirement accounts (IRAs) totaled $7.3 trillion at the end of the third quarter of 2014, an increase of 0.2 percent from the end of the second quarter. Defined contribution (DC) plan assets rose 0.7 percent in the third quarter to $6.6 trillion.

Government defined benefit (DB) plans —including federal, state, and local government plans — held $5.1 trillion in assets as of the end of September, a 0.9 percent decrease from the end of June. Private-sector DB plans held $3.2 trillion in assets at the end of the third quarter of 2014, and annuity reserves outside of retirement accounts accounted for another $2.0 trillion.

Americans held $6.6 trillion in all employer-based DC retirement plans on September 30, 2014, of which $4.5 trillion was held in 401(k) plans. These figures were $6.6 trillion and $4.4 trillion, respectively, as of June 30, 2014.

In addition to 401(k) plans, at the end of the second quarter, $560 billion was held in other private-sector DC plans, $928 billion in 403(b) plans, $258 billion in 457 plans, and $409 billion in the Federal Employees Retirement System’s Thrift Savings Plan (TSP).  Mutual funds managed $3.7 trillion, or 55 percent, of assets held in DC plans at the end of September.

IRAs held $7.3 trillion in assets at the end of the third quarter of 2014, about unchanged from the upward-revised $7.3 trillion at the end of the second quarter of 2014. Forty-eight percent of IRA assets, or $3.5 trillion, was invested in mutual funds.

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