Retirement Assets Reach $17.6 Trillion
July 24, 2008
Despite difficult market conditions, Americans continued to save more for retirement last year, according to the Investment Company Institute.
That growth lifted total U.S. retirement assets to $17.6 trillion at yearend, the ICI report said.
Last year, assets held in employer-sponsored retirement plans made up 64% of all U.S. retirement assets, the trade group said. Investors held $4.5 trillion in defined contribution plans, accounting for 40% of employer-sponsored plan assets. That total included $3 trillion of assets held in 401(k) plans, a 10% increase from a year earlier.
Life cycle and lifestyle funds, which gradually become more conservative as the investor approaches a predetermined retirement date, continued their rapid growth last year, the report said. Assets in those funds reached $421 billion.
Forty-six percent of lifestyle fund assets and 88% of life cycle fund assets are held in retirement accounts, the trade group said. Net retirement account inflows into mutual funds increased 23% from a year earlier, to $184 billion, the report said.
Long-term funds, which include equity, hybrid, and bond funds, garnered the bulk of the inflows, though retirement account flows to money market funds increased to $54 billion, according to the institute.
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