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Participant Transfers Pick Up the Pace in October
During the month all but one of the trading days was within normal volumes, with October 18 the lone exception.
In fact, that was an exceptionally quiet trading day for the Hewitt benchmark, some 80% lower than normal. Significantly, on that day investors saw the Dow plummet 400 points and the NASDAQ nearly 200 points before recovering late in the day.
Overall trading volumes picked up noticeably from September’s tepid pace. And while on most days (15) net movement continued to swing to fixed income funds, higher volume days found the shift going toward equity funds on all but one day (October 24).
For the month, the Dow gained 3.01%, but the S&P 500 slipped 0.49%, the Russell 2000 fell 4.54% and the NASDAQ tumbled 8.25%.
The Hewitt 401(k) index is based on data collected daily from 1.5 million 401(k) participants with approximately $68 billion in collective assets.