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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: StanX Long who wrote (56764)	12/1/2001 9:28:19 PM
From: StanX Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

December 2, 2001 MARKET WATCH nytimes.com Beware Those One-Note 401(k)'s By GRETCHEN MORGENSON Of all the scenes from the Enron train wreck, none is more disturbing than that of the workers dazed by the realization that their retirement plans have been destroyed by the plunge of their company's once- highflying stock. The only sins these men and women committed were being loyal to their company and wanting their own tiny version of the riches that Enron executives habitually pocketed during their years at the company. Kenneth L. Lay has taken hundreds of millions of dollars out of Enron in recent years. Of Enron's 21,000 employees, the 12,000 or so who were in the Enron-laden 401(k) plan have virtually nothing. Memo to Stock Market Nation: It is time to rethink the bright idea of filling 401(k) plans with company stock. That concept was brought to you by the bull-market hucksters of the late 1990's, the all-stock, all-the-time folks who say stock options are better than cash, pro forma earnings are as good as gold, and anything goes if it helps to keep the company's stock price up. Why not load up on company stock in your 401(k)? Diversification is for dummies. So what if employees in some plans are locked into their shares and unable to sell if the stock starts to crater? They should know better than to let their emotions rule and try to sell in bad times. Get Stock Quotes Look Up Symbols Portfolio \| Company Research U.S. Markets \| Int. Markets Mutual Funds \| Bank Rates Commodities & Currencies Click here to order Reprints or Permissions of this Article Workers of the world, wake up. You've been gulled into putting more of your eggs into one basket than even the most breathless bull would advise. As of Oct. 31, according to Hewitt Associates, 29.6 percent of 401(k) assets held in 1.5 million plans are in stock of the company sponsoring the plan. That is up from 28.4 percent at this time last year. In some high-profile companies, the proportion is even higher. At the end of last year, the most recent figures available, 46 percent of Microsoft's 401(k) plan was held in its own stock.