Walmart 5% of Plan Portfolio PSDS Scan 12-31-2014

If you have read TechNote 2015-3 you know that 401k-menu size is something that I want to better understand. The Walmart 401k Plan has 17 investment options in their SEC 11-k report. It was scanned and posted on this blog September 17, 2015. I also posted a scan of the 5% of Plan portfolio for Walmart Puerto Rico employees. That portfolio scan has only 5 investment options: WMT, IWB, ACWI, PDBAX and PTTRX.

I did not notice in the September post the obvious; the 5% of Plan portfolio with only 5 investment options was better diversified than the portfolio with 17 options. It also had a better 5yr return with less volatility. I ran another scan of the 5% of Plan portfolio today with very similar results. They indicate smaller portfolios often are better than larger and many employees are investing in the 5% of Plan portfolio.