Your 401(k) was supposed to be a sleepy parking spot for retirement money. Set it and forget it until you’re 69½ and sipping margaritas on a beach somewhere. gl, with that plan!
Related: there are now 23+ million millionaires in the US — 1,000 new ones every single day last year — mostly because houses and stocks went parabolic in the latest liquidity bubble (apnews ). Funny timing.
87% of people never make a single trade in their 401(k) all year. That’s fine if you want to rely on 7% average returns, and prayers. The other 13% savvy enough to realize that markets don't always go back up, and history proves that most markets return to the mean. But when we try to take control of our finances, by placing a few trades, we immediately get slapped with warnings, fees, or threats of 85-day lockouts, and if you've ever had the displeasure of talking to an agent on the other end of the line, they themselves are not familiar with their own rules, and guidelines, when it comes to excessive trading warnings, and violation, and how to prevent them.
I recently ran into this issue trading the wife's Fidelity account, and let me tell you, "listening to her try to cut through the red tape, was excruciating. But then I found it;
...the hack that allowed me to enter through the backdoor to the casino; hidden in plain sight!"
The Golden Rule almost nobody reads:
“Round-trip transactions of less than $25,000 in the same fund within 30 calendar days will NOT trigger the frequent-trading restriction.” Translation: As long as every single buy OR sell in the same fund is under $25k, you can swing-trade like a degenerate hedge-fund monkey and the system doesn’t flag you & it's 100% legal.
Real-world example I tested myself (Dec 2025):
- Day 1: Five separate $24,999 purchases into 5 separate Funds (2 NVIDIA heavyweights, 1 small-cap, 2 tech-heavy mid-caps, and 1 blue-chip → total $124,995
- Day 2: Five separate $24,999 sells → 100% out to Stable fund
- Result: Zero flags, zero fees, zero 85-day lockout.
2 battle-tested ways to never get flagged
- The $24,999 Ho-Chunk casino Method (Fidelity & most big plans)
Keep every individual trade under the magic threshold (usually $25k, sometimes $10k—check your plan for restrictions). Game Changer! - Trade “Unrestricted Funds”; List Every provider has a handful of index funds ETFs that are explicitly exempt from round-trip rules. The Catch: Some of those funds are real stinkers, but you may find a diamond in the rough...
Pro tip: Check components, and comparables. e.g. If it's a small-cap fund how does it perform when compared to the Russell 2000? - A little-known loophole - once you reach a certain age, you may become eligible to roll your employer sponsored 401k (amount) into an IRA, which will give you access to a myriad of better options. I swear, I'm not a financial advisor! disclaimer link
- The scaredy-cat method: Wait the required 30 days, before hightailing it back into the relative safety of your retirement account's only stable fund.
- Fidelity → <$25k exempt
- Vanguard → <$10k exempt on most plans (some still $25k)
- Schwab → <$25k exempt
- Empower → TL;DR [link]
- Principal → Dk;Dk (Don't Know, Don't Care) Horrible experience... long story.
Bottom
line:
Not saying you should gamble your retirement... but experienced traders call the stock market a casino for a reason—especially when Cramer starts yelling "get out!" like he did in 2009. Leaving your nest egg parked on the pass line forever? The prospectus flat-out warns you could lose it all. If you're one of those 13% who gets jittery during the next meltdown, just build/exit in <$25k bites (or wait 30 days) to rotate to the stable fund on your timeline—zero penalties, zero drama.Final note: Double-check you're not getting dinged with re-balance fees.
Take Care, and Happy Trading
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