A strong year for stocks saw moderate trading levels in 401(k) plans. There were 41 above-normali days, up significantly from 14 in 2023. Net trading activity also rose to 1.24% in 2024 from 0.82% in 2023.
Bond funds accounted for half of all net trading inflows, indicating that investors were rebalancing their portfolios when stocks outgained fixed income. Half of the net trading outflows were from target date fundsii. Despite these outflows, target date fundsii remain the largest asset class (31%), followed closely by large cap U.S. equity (30%).
Asset classes with most trading inflows in 2024 | Percentage of inflows | Index dollar value ($mil) |
| Bond funds | 50% | $1,506 |
| Large U.S. equity funds | 26% | $787 |
| Money market funds | 17% | $525 |
Asset classes with most trading outflows in 2024 | Percentage of outflows | Index dollar value ($mil) |
Target date fundsii | 50% | $1,509 |
Company stock | 24% | $721 |
| Mid U.S. equity | 11% | $340 |
Asset classes with most contributions in 2024 | Percentage of contributions | Index dollar value($mil) |
Target date fundsii | 50% | $8,725 |
Large U.S. equity funds | 21% | $3,690 |
International funds | 7% | $1,166 |
Percentage of balances by asset class
Asset class | Year end 2024 | Year end 2023 | Change |
Money market | 1.1% | 1.1% | 0.1% |
Stable value | 5.9% | 7.3% | -1.4% |
Bond | 6.4% | 6.7% | -0.3% |
Balanced | 1.6% | 1.3% | 0.3% |
| Target date fundsii | 31.1% | 31.4% | -0.3% |
| Large cap U.S. equity | 29.9% | 27.5% | 2.4% |
| Mid cap U.S. equity | 4.2% | 4.8% | -0.6% |
| Small cap U.S. equity | 3.4% | 3.2% | 0.2% |
| International | 6.1% | 6.8% | -0.7% |
| Emerging markets | 0.8% | 0.9% | -0.1% |
| Specialty/sector | 0.4% | 0.4% | 0.0% |
| Company stock | 6.9% | 6.1% | 0.8% |
| Self-directed brokerage | 2.5% | 2.5% | 0.0% |
| Asset class | Year end 2024 | Year end 2023 | Change |
| Equity | 72.4% | 70.5% | 1.9% |
| Fixed income | 27.6% | 29.5% | -1.9% |
Index statistics | 2024 |
Total transfers as a percentage of starting balance | 1.24% |
# Fixed days | 155 (62%) |
# Equity days | 97 (38%) |
# Above normali days | 41 |
The following table shows the returns of major market indices for the year ending December 31, 2024:
Returns for common indices | 2024 YTD |
Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index | 1.25% |
S&P 500 Index | 25.02% |
Russell 2000 Index | 11.54% |
MSCI All Country World ex-U.S. Index (net) | 5.53% |
i A “normal” level of relative transfer activity is when the net daily movement of participants’ balances, as a percent of total 401(k) balances within the Alight Solutions 401(k) Index™, equals between 0.3 times and 1.5 times the average daily net activity of the preceding 12 months. A “high” relative transfer activity day is when the net daily movement exceeds two times the average daily net activity. A “moderate” relative transfer activity day is when the net daily movement is between 1.5 and 2 times the average daily net activity of the preceding 12 months.
ii Target date funds also include the amounts in target risk funds. The amount in the target risk funds is less than 10% of the total.
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