Howdy All,

My wife has about $20K parked in a 401-k with her previous employer. Although I know we could leave the money in that account, we'd both feel a lot better if we had the money somewhere else. Her new employer's 401-k choice of investment options is pretty poor, so we've decided to transfer her old 401-k into a self directed IRA.

I've done the leg work and selected an on-line broker that we want to transfer the 401-k to. Now my question (finally! I hear you say), when you transfer a 401-k into an IRA with another broker do they simply transfer "ownership" of the mutual funds or do they liquidate the funds and just transfer the cash?

I ask because the on-line broker we've selected does carry the same mutual funds that my wife currently has in her 401-k. We are interested in foolishly getting rid of the two non-index mutual funds and investing in stocks. If the mutual funds are transferred to the new broker then we'll have to pay a $29 commission to cash out of each of 'em.

So will the funds be liquidated automatically in the transfer, or should we direct the current 401-k custodian to switch the mutual funds into a money market account before we transfer into the IRA?

Thanks,
Yellow