Canada (EN)
In many ways, 2025 highlighted the key drivers of trading activity in retirement plans. During the first half of the year, trading surged as stocks slipped into negative territory. In fact, 36 of the 44 above-normal1 trading days occurred within the first four months, with investors shifting from equities to fixed income.
As markets rebounded in the second half of the year, trading activity eased. Bond funds represented half of all net inflows, while target date funds accounted for half of the net outflows. Still, target date funds remain the largest asset class at 31%, closely followed by large-cap U.S. equity at 30%.
Asset classes with most trading inflows in 2025 | Percentage of inflows | Index dollar value ($mil) |
| Bond funds | 48% | $2,449 |
| Stable value funds | 18% | $904 |
| Money market | 14% | $735 |
Asset classes with most trading outflows in 2025 | Percentage of outflows | Index dollar value ($mil) |
Target date fundsii | 49% | $2,533 |
Large U.S. equity | 22% | $1,130 |
| Company stock | 18% | $923 |
Asset classes with most contributions in 2025 | Percentage of contributions | Index dollar value($mil) |
Target date fundsii | 49% | $8,129 |
Large U.S. equity funds | 23% | $3,829 |
International funds | 7% | $1,136 |
Percentage of balances by asset class
Asset class | Year end 2025 | Year end 2024 | Change |
Money market | 1.2% | 1.1% | 0.1% |
Stable value | 4.9% | 5.9% | -1.0% |
Bond | 6.5% | 6.4% | 0.1% |
Balanced | 1.4% | 1.6% | -0.2% |
| Target date fundsii | 30.9% | 31.1% | -0.2% |
| Large cap U.S. equity | 29.7% | 29.9% | -0.2% |
| Mid cap U.S. equity | 4.0% | 4.2% | -0.2% |
| Small cap U.S. equity | 3.2% | 3.4% | -0.2% |
| International | 6.9% | 6.1% | 0.8% |
| Emerging markets | 1.0% | 0.8% | 0.2% |
| Specialty/sector | 0.5% | 0.4% | 0.1% |
| Company stock | 7.3% | 6.9% | 0.4% |
| Self-directed brokerage | 2.5% | 2.5% | 0.0% |
| Asset class | Year end 2025 | Year end 2024 | Change |
| Equity | 73.2% | 72.4% | 0.8% |
| Fixed income | 26.8% | 27.6% | -0.8% |
Index statistics | 2025 |
Total transfers as a percentage of starting balance | 1.93% |
# Fixed days | 192 (77%) |
# Equity days | 58 (23%) |
# Above normali days | 44 |
The following table shows the returns of major market indices for the year ending December 31, 2025:
Returns for common indices | 2025 YTD |
Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index | 7.30% |
S&P 500 Index | 17.88% |
Russell 2000 Index | 12.81% |
MSCI All Country World ex-U.S. Index (net) | 32.39% |
i A “normal” level of relative transfer activity is when the net daily movement of participants’ balances, as a percent of total 401(k) balances within the Alight Solutions 401(k) Index™, equals between 0.3 times and 1.5 times the average daily net activity of the preceding 12 months. A “high” relative transfer activity day is when the net daily movement exceeds two times the average daily net activity. A “moderate” relative transfer activity day is when the net daily movement is between 1.5 and 2 times the average daily net activity of the preceding 12 months.
ii Target date funds also include the amounts in target risk funds. The amount in the target risk funds is less than 10% of the total.
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