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June 21, 2001
TO: DIRECT MARKETING COMMITTEE No. 7-01
OPERATIONS COMMITTEE No. 21-01
PENSION COMMITTEE No. 37-01
PENSION OPERATIONS ADVISORY COMMITTEE No. 39-01
SALES FORCE MARKETING COMMITTEE No. 8-01
SHAREHOLDER COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE No. 8-01
SMALL FUNDS COMMITTEE No. 9-01
RE: INSTITUTE RELEASES YEAR-END 2000 RETIREMENT PLAN STATISTICS
The Institute recently released a Fundamentals publication containing data for year-end
2000 regarding mutual funds and the retirement market. Mutual funds’ share of the $11.5 trillion
U.S. retirement market remained at 21 percent in 2000.1 Retirement assets invested in mutual
funds declined 2 percent in 2000 to $2.4 trillion, reflecting weakness in U.S. and foreign equity
markets. The negative market performance offset an estimated $115 billion net inflow of new cash
to mutual funds from retirement accounts.
At year-end 2000, mutual fund assets in IRAs were $1.2 trillion, which represented 46
percent of the $2.7 trillion IRA market. Traditional IRAs accounted for 89 percent of all mutual
fund IRA assets. SIMPLE IRA mutual fund assets continued to grow rapidly, rising to $8 billion in
2000 from $6 billion in 1999.2
Mutual fund assets in defined contribution plans were $1.2 trillion at year-end 2000.
Mutual fund assets in 401(k) plans totaled $766 billion, which represented an estimated 45 percent
share of the 401(k) market. Mutual fund assets held in 457 plans amounted to $38 billion at year-
end 2000 and represented about 35 percent of the total 457 plan market.
One copy of the June 2001 Fundamentals is attached. In addition, you may obtain a copy of
the publication by accessing the Institute’s public website at www.ici.org. Click Retirement
Security Issues and then Retirement Statistics to access the June Fundamentals.
Sarah Holden
Senior Economist
Enclosure
1 The Fundamentals contains a new table (Figure 5) detailing the components of the total U.S. retirement market.
2 The Fundamentals expands the discussion of SIMPLE IRAs to include some analysis of non-mutual fund assets held in
SIMPLE IRAs.