Company Stock Holds Steady As Percentage of 401(k) Assets

According to a new study of 401(k) account balances, company stock now accounts for 16.4% of all 401(k) assets, about the same as last year, but off its peak of 19% in 1999. The study, "401(k) Plan Asset Allocations, Account Balances, and Loan Activity in 2003," was published in August by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and is a joint project of EBRI and the Investment Company Institute. It looks at 15 million participants in a broad range of companies and is, by far, the definitive resource on this topic. Just less than half the participants in the study were in plans that offered company stock as an investment. About one-third of those employees chose not to invest in company stock at all, 57% had less than 20% in company stock, and 18.3% had more than 50% of their balances in company stock.