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Comment by EstesPark | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone have an actual breakdown of how much the younger generations are placing away in a 401k - if that's even possible?

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This article has one: https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/buying-stocks/articles/here-...

As you'd expect the contribution percentage increases with age (and the amount presumably increases even more). But even under 25s are at about 5% which is more than I would have expected though this is presumably just among people who have the option.

401ks are like ~10% of the stock market: https://theirrelevantinvestor.com/2020/10/25/who-owns-the-st...

Boomer 401ks are probably <5% of the stock market, and they aren't going to 0 overnight.

The idea that boomer 401k withdrawals is going to crash the stock market or tamp out future growth is pretty strange.

Defined benefit & defined contribution pension plans are both larger chunks of the stock market than 401ks.

And all of those together are a smaller chunk than foreigner holdings.

"The market is like a large movie theater with a small door. And the best way to detect a sucker is to see if his focus is on the size of the theater rather than that of the door." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb in Skin in the Game

(This is not to say that you, specifically, are a "sucker", and I don't love the term. But I think Taleb has a lot to offer on considering risk.)

> Defined benefit & defined contribution pension plans are both larger chunks of the stock market than 401ks.

401k are a type of defined contribution retirement plan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defined_contribution_plan

You're looking at market cap when you should be looking at volume. 5% of the stock market going liquid at a higher than ambient rate can reduce valuations by significantly more than 5%, possibly multiples more. And as we saw with interest rate hikes and bonds the past couple of years, something like that is a systemic risk and the fallout can easily cascade.

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