John Galt III
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2008
- Messages
- 2,803
Hi,
I've noticed something interesting and annoying in my 401k. I have a "Stable Return" fund, and also some Pimco Total Return there.
Every once in a while my number of shares in both of the above will drop by a very small amount, on the same day. For example, from 302.33 shares to 302.29 shares, in one day.
The shares only normally change during the weekly contributions I make when I have money deducted from my paycheck, so the change in number of shares catches my eye on other days. I track the account pretty closely.
When I check the transaction history, online, for these reductions in shares, I find an entry for "earn gain / loss " for the amount of money extracted. There is no mention of a "fee".
The amount of money I lose in each of these episodes has varied from $5 to less than $1. Almost always it is less than $2. It happens on an irregular basis. It was happening approximately once per month for 3 months, then nothing for 6 months, then it happened again yesterday.
Doesn't seem to correlate to any of my activity in the account.
I definitely don't want to call the 401K customer service clerks about it, and get bounced around all day from incompetent person A to incompetent person Z. I've called them before, about something else, and they are pretty clueless, unfortunately, no matter how long you are on hold waiting for them to "research the question".
At first, I only had the Stable Return fund, and I thought perhaps the fund was losing money, during the "financial crisis", and instead of lowering the share price, they just lowered everyone's number of shares very slightly, hoping they would not notice. Can't have a Stable Return fund decreasing in share value, now can we? Might set off a panic.
But later I added the Pimco fund, which has a volatile share price, and they are doing it to Pimco too.
Maybe it's some sort of fee. I would have thought the fees would be extracted behind the scenes, and never actually shown, but if shown, would be on a more regular basis.
Not losing any sleep over this, since it's a very small amount of money. Just wondering what's going on here. Anyone else notice their number of shares being whittled away ?
Thanks,
JG3
I've noticed something interesting and annoying in my 401k. I have a "Stable Return" fund, and also some Pimco Total Return there.
Every once in a while my number of shares in both of the above will drop by a very small amount, on the same day. For example, from 302.33 shares to 302.29 shares, in one day.
The shares only normally change during the weekly contributions I make when I have money deducted from my paycheck, so the change in number of shares catches my eye on other days. I track the account pretty closely.
When I check the transaction history, online, for these reductions in shares, I find an entry for "earn gain / loss " for the amount of money extracted. There is no mention of a "fee".
The amount of money I lose in each of these episodes has varied from $5 to less than $1. Almost always it is less than $2. It happens on an irregular basis. It was happening approximately once per month for 3 months, then nothing for 6 months, then it happened again yesterday.
Doesn't seem to correlate to any of my activity in the account.
I definitely don't want to call the 401K customer service clerks about it, and get bounced around all day from incompetent person A to incompetent person Z. I've called them before, about something else, and they are pretty clueless, unfortunately, no matter how long you are on hold waiting for them to "research the question".
At first, I only had the Stable Return fund, and I thought perhaps the fund was losing money, during the "financial crisis", and instead of lowering the share price, they just lowered everyone's number of shares very slightly, hoping they would not notice. Can't have a Stable Return fund decreasing in share value, now can we? Might set off a panic.
But later I added the Pimco fund, which has a volatile share price, and they are doing it to Pimco too.
Maybe it's some sort of fee. I would have thought the fees would be extracted behind the scenes, and never actually shown, but if shown, would be on a more regular basis.
Not losing any sleep over this, since it's a very small amount of money. Just wondering what's going on here. Anyone else notice their number of shares being whittled away ?
Thanks,
JG3