Anne Tergesen

speaker

4,485 appearances 83 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2017 last heard Feb 2025

Anne Tergesen’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

No recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

WSJ Your Money Briefing · Why Checking Your 401(k) Too Often Can Jeopardize Your Savings · 7 Jul 2022 podcast

There's pretty longstanding behavioral research that shows that the more often you look at your 401k, the more often you look at the balance, the lower your long-term returns are likely to be. matched

And this has to do with the volatility in the markets, you know, just the normal volatility matched

So with volatility, you know, you do see gains and you see losses. matched

But for most people, on average, the pain of a loss is a more prominent feeling than the pleasure you get from a gain. matched

So people tend to be more risk averse or loss averse in general. matched

If you check every day, you're going to see markets post declines on average 46 percent of the time. matched

Whereas if you forego the temptation to check every day and you check, say, once a year on an annual basis, you're only going to see the markets down about 25 percent of the time. matched

And if you really are good about not checking and you don't check over 10 years, you're only going to see a 6% chance of decline. matched

So the idea is that the more often you check, the more likely you are to see bad news. matched

And this causes people to be more fearful about stocks. matched

So if you have a 30-year horizon, say you don't need that money for 30 years, but you check the market every day, matched

you're going to have more anxiety about stocks in all likelihood because you're going to see declines more often. matched

So you're going to invest less in stocks and you're going to have lower returns over the long run. matched

Well, there's a variety of opinions on this. matched

One of the behavioral economists who I spoke to who actually conducted this research, you know, he advises people to check as infrequently as possible until you get to retirement. matched

And then you have this sort of necessity of checking because, you know, you need to know how much you have in order to figure out how to plan for retirement. matched

So as retirement gets closer, you need to matched

sort of figure out a way to check your balance more often and for planning purposes. matched

But the 401 record keepers that I spoke to, Vanguard and other companies, generally suggest looking periodically, say once a year at a minimum. matched

Vanguard says, you know, maybe once a quarter if you feel like you can handle it. matched

Showing 1401–1420 of 4,485 · page 71 of 225