Online Retirement Advice for Individual 401k Plan Participants
THE INDUSTRY LEADERS (AN ALPHABETICAL LISTING)

All of the below are INDEPENDENT investment advisors. None sell mutual funds, stocks, insurance products or any other investments nor receive commissions of any kind on investments they recommend. In addition, none have paid any fee for their listing or otherwise compensated 401(k) Easy for inclusion in this website.

All of the below offer personalized, specific information about how much to invest in which plan investments offered within your company's particular 401(k) plan.

	Services Offered	Notes
ClearFuture www.morningstar.com/ Cover/ClearFuture.html	-- Bases recommendations on retirement income goals, not risk toleration -- Derives several potential investment strategies based on investments available and retirement income goals -- Ongoing projections that include showing potential effects of holding or selling during turbulent market times -- Integrated with Morningstar reports and information (quick access to "view Morningstar report" on investments being considered)	-- by Morningstar, the industry leader in providing mutual fund, stock and variable-annuity invstment information
FinancialEngines www.financialengines.com	-- FOR FREE: Extensive "Monte Carlo" style of modeling that, rather than assuming static investment returns and inflation rates over time, takes into account numerous possible economic cycle scenarios based on varying combinations of future investment returns and inflation rates in determining the probability that the client will reach his/her retirement goals -- FOR PAYING CLIENTS: Advice on exactly how much to invest in which of your plan's 401k investments to improve your chances of reaching your retirement goals; daily tracking of those investments' performances and their effect on the client's account; ongoing advice about needed changes in the account due to current and projected investment performance and economic cycles -- Do not counsel on investments outside the 401(k) but do take any outside holdings into account in making 401(k) recommendations to client	-- Computerized modeling system by Nobel Prize-winning economist Bill Sharpe and others -- Highly touted by the Los Angeles Times (8/5/99), San Francisco Chronicle (11/23/99), and The Wall Street Journal ((8/12/99), among others -- $28.95 per 3 months (April 2000) -- Accepts fiduciary responsibility for advice it gives, relieving employers from such responsibility
mPower (formerly Emergent Advisors) www.mpower.com	-- Investment guidance for just 401(k) assets or all retirement assets -- Customized risk profiling -- Portfolio tracking and analysis, including a comparison between current and recommended allocation levels -- Advice on employee stock plans -- One-year, five-year, at-retirement portfolio simulation	-- Parent company of 401k Forum (www.401kforum.com), a registered investment advisors -- Parent company to 401 Kafe (www.401kafe.com), an online community and content site dedicated exclusively to 401(k) participants nationwide

Other services include Directadvice.com. The Wall Street Journal favors FinancialEngines services to Directadvice's for being simpler and easier to understand, and for more useful projections about investments actually meeting your retirement goals (Thursday, August 12, 1999) -- but individual plan participants might want to know Directadvice.com is out there, too!