Rolling over 401k Right Now

[morethanconquerors]

My wife recently changed jobs, so we were going to roll over her 401k into an IRA. With the market the way it is right now, should we hold off on this? Her 401k is down about 20%, so the amount we would roll over is significantly less than what we were planning to roll over a month ago. Should the market have any impact on when we do the rollover?

[dandarc]

Do you know the mechanics of the rollover? Will the assets be transferred in-kind? Will they sell everything and cut a check that might take weeks to process?

[tawyer]

Same dilemma here, with 3 to rollover potentially. PTF.

Thanks @dandarc I did not know about in-kind transfer, I will have to ask.

Cutting a check sounds like market timing, which I am hesitant to act on even though I believe we have at least another month before a recovery from this point.

[NotJen]

Even though I came out ahead, it’s really stressful to do a rollover when the market is changing wildly:  https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/why-did-i-choose-to-do-my-401k-rollover-this-week/

[ender]

I would not want to initiate a rollover during weeks where every day the market has significant movement in either direction.

Could work out really well for you or really badly. If you want that risk go for it ;-)

[LightStache]

I initiated two rollovers mid-Jan and reinvested funds in mid-Feb. Wish I had been a few weeks later. In your shoes I think I'd wait until later in the year when the market calms a bit. That's market timing admittedly, but there are likely to be huge up days during the recovery that you wouldn't want to miss due to the rollover.