New EBRI Data on Company Stock in 401(k) Plans

The Employee Benefits Research Institute (EBRI) reports that 36% of participants in the EBRI 401(k) plan database were in plans that offered company stock as an investment. Where company stock was an option, 18.3% of participants selected that as one of their holdings. Seventy-six percent of these have less than 20% of their holdings in company shares, while 7% had more than 80% in company stock. Overall, 7.2% of 401(k) participants held company stock. The percentage of participants holding company stock has stabilized in recent years, but had reached a peak of 19% in the late 1990s.