A scary thought

[ddupont]

I just thought about this lately and it's been bugging me. Economists are faulting the current mortgage crisis on banks selling off their debt portfolios as securities. So home owners were finding that they had no idea who held their mortgage.

Here's my thought: can Wall Street do this same thing with 401k portfolios—sell them off to other entities as securities?

 

[pinkflutterbys]

No, you own the assets in your 401(k). Only you can sell them and earn interest--actually, dividends and price appreciation. A mortgage is similar. Whoever owns the mortgage has the opportunity to receive interest from the debt payments, and the mortgages can be bought and sold similar to the way you can sell stocks and bonds in your 401(k). But "Wall Street" can't force you to sell things that don't belong to them.

 

[roger12]

According to me , For loans secured by mortgages, such as residential housing loans, and lending practices or requirements, see Mortgage loan.A mortgage loan is a loan secured by real property through the use of a mortgage (a legal instrument).