Hi all,
I am coming up on the end of my waiting period for 401k eligibility, yay! I am budgeting to max it out this year. I am trying to decide which fund to invest in. I have a choice of Vanguard target date retirement funds, and in an interesting twist, because I work for a large insurance company with a big institutional investing arm, they have created an index fund that aims to track the S&P 500 with an expense ratio of 0.03%. VTSAX is not available.
I've attached screenshots of the two funds I've narrowed it down to - which would you recommend? Based solely on expenses the institutional index fund would win, but I guess I'm not educated enough about the stock market to know whether the S&P 500 is a good benchmark to track or if there are downsides to that I'm not considering.
I also have about $15000 sitting in a 401k with my former employer. I don't want to leave it there as the fee are really high. Should I roll it over into my work 401k, or should I open a separate IRA with Vanguard? I tend to prefer simplicity, so I am leaning towards just rolling it over since my 401k investment funds have low fees... but if there are advantages to keeping a separate IRA I'd be interested to hear them. I make too much to qualify for a deductible IRA, which is why I'm focusing on maxing out the 401k.
Thank you in advance for your thoughts.