let's say you get a new job and you want to transfer your 401k to your new employer's brokerage.

first your existing holdings have to be sold on the market on a particular day.

then your money takes a few business days to be transferred.

then once the money is in your new employer's 401k servicer/company, you have to buy back into the market on another day.

if you don't time this correctly (which i'm sure most people don't), won't you lose money by buying higher if the market happens to move up in between these two events?

if so, why hasn't this process been streamlined in some way?

yes, and after your holdings are sold, the company (Principal) will send you a literal paper check in the mail (takes 7-14 days) with your account balance. I ended up losing like 8% because the market went bananas during those 14 days I was waiting for Principal to mail out my fuking paper check so I could roll over my funds to a different 401k

oof. my brokerage is saying they will mail a check to my new employer's brokerage.

if market moons tomorrow i am planning to go full cash and transfer to my new brokerage as cash holding

then when market is down i will buy shares

Usually and depends on your setup. That's the thing about "benefits", it's a way to keep you there because if you leave you lose.

I've never rolled over to a new employers plan. I roll over 401K's to my account at Vanguard. As far as losses go, it's a wash. One or two weeks being in cash isn't going to kill your retirement out.

You really only lose money if you aren't fully vested in your 401k through your employer. Yeah you could sell at an all-time low and lose a few percentage points, but it's rather simple to do.

Have old broker cut a check and have them make it out to your existing broker referencing your account and give them the address to send it to. You should have the funds in 3-5 days.

Don't transfer the funds into your new 401k because almost every employer's 401k broker sucks with a poor selection of funds and high fees. Transfer it to Vanguard or some other low cost broker that you prefer.

I actually made a lot of money doing this. I sold last Oct around the peak of all my funds. Those funds tanked 45%, I proceeded to buy a few stocks with it. I still have some left to spend. It gets transferred to a market account so I can do as I like with it. It's like a checking account for stocks.

reason I'm rolling over to employer is because if you do IRA you lose certain protections that exist with employer sponsored brokerages, and also you can't take loans from your IRA

the fund I'm planning to use at new employer is fidelity 500 with an extremely low expense ratio, lower than anything else I believe

What the hell kind of poverty jobs do you guys have?????

You can roll your current employer's 401k plan into your future employer's plan - you do NOT have to cash it out then "buy in" again......that's not how 401k's work.

So you can roll it into your new employers plan - OR you can even keep it where it is, and you can start contributing to your new employers plans. The only downside to this is you'll have 2 accounts and sometimes if the little rinky-dink companies you plebs are working for change 401k plans / providers it can be a pain in the ass to keep track of all your accounts / logins.

Just roll it over dude....I'm positive you don't have much money in there anyway....hence the question.

Nah they are right. Your funds have to be liquidated from the first brokerage and sent to the other brokerage. You are out of the market for some amount of time

Even when my old jobs 401k and new jobs 401k were at the same brokerage, they still needed to do a liquidation

If you're taking loans from your retirement account, having the money in an IRA is not the issue, money management would be the issue.

no. i like the ability to take out loans for the following reasons:

1) emergency
2) to hedge against a bad market like what we have now. i took out a loan when SPY was $450 earlier this year and just paid it back yesterday when SPY was $385. if you're in an IRA, sure, you can actively trade like that.. but you lose the protections and you can't pay yourself interest after you've sold.

Oh. I'd just take contributions out of the IRA, if I needed money. You do realize you can't earn interest on 401k loans right? And not all brokerages allow it.

Our equivalent here in Canada is the RRSP and I've contributed to that with only one company, pretty sure the provider allowed me to hold the investment directly with them after leaving

Eventually sold them anyways

Assuming you're still young and won't be pulling from your 401k for a long time, in the grand scheme of things, its just peanuts