Five Minute 401(k) Investment Management

It is a fact that, no one investing in a 401(k) willfully wants to throw their money away. Also true, then, is that safety should be everyone's first priority.

How does one gain safety? By managing investment risk ... staying on top of those 401(k) investments where your money is on the line.

The task of 401(k) investment management, as I see it, requires no more than five minutes each month verifying with your own eyes if the tide you believed likely to bring you profits still is rising, much as it was when you first bought in. Checking the performance of each fund where your money is at risk, you are on guard for the one sign indicating you are vulnerable to suffering wealth-killing losses.

No matter if you agree with my focus on the stock market (because history reveals stocks are where the money is at), you could easily adapt my strategy, if you choose, to help you assess risk affecting other investments your 401(k) plan offers. Truth is, though, no matter how you decide to diversify, managing risk simply is a must.

Fortunately, this isn't rocket science: Even a teenager could do the minimal legwork needed to ensure exceptionally profitable 401(k) investment returns over the long-term.

There is just no way around it. Every 401(k) investment carries risk. Still, you have no good reason to feel helpless. Not when you can effortlessly maximize profits devising some mechanical scheme (much like *mine*) helping you better secure your #1 priority: safety. This affords you confidence to invest aggressively, seeking maximum returns on your savings, because you know what to do when your risk of suffering a terrible loss is increasing. You step aside and protect your 401(k)'s accumulated capital in a safe money market fund.

My simple strategy has worked brilliantly these past thirty years. And there is every reason to believe it will continue doing so, because here in America and across the globe the business of business likely will remain relatively the same for as far as the eye can see. Therefore, the ups and downs — the booms and busts — that are the business of business should similarly impact both the rise and fall of investment risk much as it always has. So, my 401(k) investment strategy should continue helping you navigate your way to that secure, rich retirement you deserve.

Understand. A 401(k) offers you the ability to sell winning investments without having to pay a capital gains tax on your profits. What a gift! Now, why do you suppose you are given this power? Might it be to encourage you to actively manage your investment risk?

Do this and you better ensure profits your 401(k) investments earn will remain yours.

By actively managing your Plan A investment risk you exercise power to continually build upon investment gains you've already made—gains you religiously bank when odds of profiting further no longer are in your favor. This is how relatively small sums you save in a 401(k) might more assuredly compound into that fat fortune you hope to enjoy in retirement.

Indeed, this "actively managed" 401(k) investment strategy can serve you well for the rest of your life. You should never have to change a thing about how you manage investment risk, even after you retire. After all, risk is risk, and opportunity is opportunity, no matter what your age. So, on this account, too, your task of managing your 401(k) is simplified, because once you grasp the gist of my strategy, you never will need to change a thing about how you go about building and keeping your fortune.

Five minutes per month—at most!—checking the performance of your Plan A investments hardly seems "active management." Yet for the purpose of making your participation in a 401(k) most worthwhile, five minutes is all the time you will need to distinguish risk from opportunity, as you must if you are to transform your relatively meager savings into a respectable fortune.