<<My husband is just opening a rollover 401K with Merrill Lynch (His new job
has a sep retirement program there, which he is also opening). We want to put
some of the rollover into an index fund, but looking at their online page (can you
say useless?) I can't find out which of the fund families they offer has a S&P 500
index fund. Does anyone have any experience with this? They list Fidelity, do
they have an index fund? Is it a good one, or does Merrill Lynch offer any one
that would be recommended. The broker said they offer Janus funds, though that
is not on Merrill's online list. Are there other funds not on the online list that they
carry?>>

If at all possible, can he open this account somewhere else? Merrill has terrible index funds, which not only have higher expense ratios than other index funds, but also carry a 5% load I believe. Merrill makes something of an effort to discourage its clients using index funds, because it cuts into the level of fees that they prefer charging.

Merrill's funds are generally considered the worst in the business. In a recent Barron's ranking, Merrill's funds were rated 55th out of 55 over the last five years.

If your husband is rolling the money from a 401k to an IRA, he can literally do better by rolling it over to almost anywhere else.

Bill