On Dec 21, 9:59*am, Rich Carreiro <rlc-n...[at]rlcarr.com> wrote:
- quote -

Turns out that it is not covered. Nor is the stable value fund of
the plan of a previous employer.

The only choice I have would be to rollover the money from
previous employer's plan to my IRA, but that wouldn't help unless
I put it in treasuries because the guarantee only applies to money
that were in the funds as of September 2008.

In any case, I think these funds would be less of a risk than
regular stock/bond funds. If these start breaking the buck in
any significant way, I think stocks and bonds will be a
total mess.

Anoop

anoop <ghanwani[at]gmail.com> writes:

- quote -

I wouldn't guess that. Absent any other info, I'd assume
a "fixed income fund" was some kind of normal bond mutual fund.
But definitely check.

--
Rich Carreiro rlc-news[at]rlcarr.com

On Dec 19, 4:13*pm, MyVeryOwnSelf <s...[at]emailNot.invalid> wrote:

- quote -

Interesting...I had not even bothered to check on the stable
value funds in my 401(k) plan. I guess I need to check as well.
I have something called a "fixed income fund" or something like
that, but my guess would be that it is similar to a stable value fund.

If you have an option of investing in a TIPS fund through your
plan, that may be slightly safer option, although with a potential
for deflation in the near term, that may drop as well...

Anoop

- quote -

To check on this, I just phoned Fidelity, the administrator of my 401K
account.

They said "NO!"

In fact, the stable value fund available to me is *NOT* protected by the by
the "Treasury Temporary Guarantee Program for Money Market Funds."

- quote -

The maximum amount insured is what you had in that money-market account on
September 19, 2008. New funds moved into a money-market after that date
aren't insured.

Source: http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/hp1161.htm

anoop wrote:
- quote -

That probably isn't correct - see my other post.

-Tad

anoop <ghanw...[at]gmail.com> wrote:
- quote -

Please excuse my blunder.

I loathe how easy it is to mix up money market deposit accounts (FDIC
insured) with money market mutual funds (which may invest in mortgage
securities).

On Dec 17, 10:34*am, honda.lion...[at]gmail.com wrote:
- quote -

I am pretty sure that Congress will extend the $250K limit for all
FDIC insured accounts before 2010.
They won't want to see deposits flee the system. I think the 2010
expiration was put in because they were in a hurry and wanted time
later to think about how FDIC should be funded to meet the bigger
liabilities.

On Dec 17, 7:34*am, honda.lion...[at]gmail.com wrote:
- quote -

I wasn't talking about FDIC insurance. I was talking about insurance
by the govt for money market mutual funds specifically - which is
probably what the stable value fund is. That would never be covered
by FDIC insurance.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business...0,216541.story
It looks like the program does run a bit longer than I mentioned,
but again it has nothing to do with the link you have posted.

Anoop

Noveau67[at]aol.com wrote:
- quote -

N67, you should get details on your stable-value fund from your 401k
provider to find out what it holds. They're different from a
money-market mutual fund in that they hold "GICs", guaranteed investment
contracts, which are interest-paying instruments from insurance
companies. Find out what GICs it holds and the credit rating for each.

The "stable value" is a bit of a fiction that arises because of the
"contract" nature of a GIC. They pay interest of x%, and principal at
maturity. This is similar in nature to a CD (at a bank, not a brokered
CD), which you might also say has a stable value. But that's only by
nature of the fact that you hold the CD to maturity and can't sell it
along the way. Also, it's covered by FDIC so you know you'll get your
money back.

But a GIC is only as good as the insurer writing it, there's no FDIC
protection involved. Finding GIC failures is kind of like finding
money-market funds that break the buck - very unusual, but that's little
comfort if you happen to be holding the bag in an unusual circumstance.
GICs were in the news back in the Michael Milken/Drexel days, when some
insurers became insolvent because of their junk bond investments. Junk
bonds sure are similar to CDOs/CMOs and bad mortgage debt. "History
doesn't repeat itself - at best it sometimes rhymes." Whether any GICs
end up with losses remains to be seen.

-Tad

On 2008-12-16 20:06:46 -0800, anoop <ghanwani[at]gmail.com> said:

- quote -

The various financial disasters that have happened recently are things
that few people expected would happen. So why not ratchet our concerns
up another notch and question the safety of US government obligations.
Will the US government fail to meet its obligations at some time in the
future? Perhaps wise investors consider ALL possibilities in their
planning.

Swiss banks might be added to the list of places to protect money. But
then again, Swiss banks could fail too. The term diversification comes
to mind-- diversification among asset classes, not just among funds or
types of accounts or institutions within one asset class.

anoop <ghanw...[at]gmail.com> wrote:
- quote -

Please review http://www.fdic.gov/deposit/deposits/changes.html and
get your facts straight. The biggest change coming is that on Jan. 1,
2010, certain deposit accounts will no longer be insured up to $250k
but instead the insured amount will return to $100k. Some accounts
will remain insured up to $250k.

- quote -

If you are saying that the cessation of FDIC insurance bodes disaster
in several ways for the economy, including lowering wages, I agree. It
will not be just stocks that are in trouble.

- quote -

Via lowering wages due to an ill economy, true.

OTOH, sometimes I wonder whether this illness will be palliative for
the long run.

On Dec 15, 2:08*am, Novea...[at]aol.com wrote:

- quote -

Personal opinion, probably not the most educated...

They're earning high interest for a reason. If you are that worried,
move to a us govt/treasury money market fund if you have such
a choice available; if not, and if paranoid, then roll over whatever
you can to an IRA and move to treasuries.

The govt has guaranteed money market funds until at least the end
of this year, so if problems are going to happen, they will happen
after the end of the year.

Lastly, if money market funds start taking a beating, the stock
market will be in much, much worse shape. Where are people
going to come up with the money to pay for products that would
keep the earnings of companies high enough to maintain stock prices?

Anoop

Hi,

I've got a lot of money in stable value funds, in 401K's. I'm
happy getting 5 % per year.

So far, my SV funds have chugged along at 5 % all through the crash
and burn of the DOW.

I keep hearing that a new wave of different types of mortgages
(commercial real estate loans, lots of regular ARM residential
mortgages, car loans and just plain old credit card loans) is the
next big wave of defaults to crash down on us.

I'm hoping that since my SV's have survived the current fiasco, they
will survive the next fiascos also.

I'd roll the 401K's into cd's in an IRA with FDIC protection, to be
extra safe, but I like the ERISA protection of the K, which is not
available in the IRA. I want the ERISA protection mainly as a bulwark
against lawsuits.

I know one of my 401k's does have at least some "mortgage"
investments, but I can't get any details. All I have is the vague and
generic prospecti for both K's.


What do you think? Stable Value funds continue to be safe throughout
the next few fiasco's ???


Thanks