76% of 401(k) Investors Optimistic About Market

A MassMutual survey of 1,000 of its retirement plan participants found that 75.8% believe the stock market will improve over the next 12 months. Only 7.6% think it will decline.

While men and women were comparably optimistic about the market, when it comes to making investment decisions, women were significantly less confident, with only 32.5% trusting their decisions, compared to 47.8% of men.

Likewise, 61.5% of men enjoy managing and 70.9% enjoy learning about their investments. For women, 48.1% like managing and 63.1 like learning about their investments.

“Regardless of gender, being able to retire is the greatest concern among 401(k) participants (37.3%)—more than double the concern about healthcare costs (16%), job security (14.5%) and managing debt (12.2%),” said Elaine Sarsynski, executive vice president of the retirement services division of MassMutual. “While almost nine times as many participants believe that they need to save more for retirement as don’t (72.9% vs. 8.2%), women are more concerned that they won’t have enough saved (70.3%) compared to men (63.2%).