How to lock in gains inside a 401K?

I have a 401K w/ T. Rowe Price. I've invested in stock funds for many yrs and have done very well. I would like to lock in my gains. How do I convert the stock fund shares into another class like bonds or money market? The website has several choices. I'm not familar w/ the terms. The website gives me 3 choices. Please explain each. Thanks.

Change Investment Election;

Change Current Balance;

Reallocate Current Balances

To lock in your gains, first select Reallocate Current Balances. Shift the desired amount to a money market fund or better yet, government-backed bonds.

If you wish to protect your future investments as much as possible, go to Change Investment Election and designate future deferalls to the same fund or funds.

Are you still working? If not, roll the funds into a Self Directed IRA. Government bond FUNDS can still lose money. You may be better off buying actual Government Bonds on your own. That way, you own the bonds and so long as you hold them until maturity, you will get all of your principal and interest. Bond Funds are a pool of bonds that you share with millions of other people. When interest rates go up, and the prices in the bond portfolio go down, you run the risk of others pulling their money out of the fund forcing the manager to sell positions at a loss.

Another option that will cause some answerers to freak out would be to put some of this money into an annuity that will pay you an income for a certain number of years (or the rest of your life). I would take out what you may need over the next few years and annuitize it. If you don't need it, dollar cost average back into the market, that will be fun to do if the market suffers from extreme volatility, you will be buying again at lower prices! With the rest, let it ride in the market, you never know when we will experience another surge upwards this year!

I worked for a large financial institution in the Phila area for 7 years
When you change investment elections you are changing where your future money is going ( the deductions as they come out of your paycheck)
When you change current balances you are moving the existing money from one fund to another (sounds like this is what you want to do)
I always told people stay away from reallocation When you reallocate you are rebalancing your entire portfolio future and existing balance to the same fund and percentages so you will be buying and selling funds. Good Luck

Good question. Basically you're trying to rebalance your portfolio to lower your exposure to stock funds.

Changing your investment election: This only affects your future contributions to your 401k. But you can use this to basically allocate your future contributions to classes like bonds or money markets if you so desire.

Change your current balance: Usually within changing your current balance, you can reallocate your entire current balance. For example, if you have $10K in your 401k, and 50% in stock funds, 25% in bonds, and 25% in money market, you can use the "change your current balance option" to reallocate the $10K to whichever mix you so desire, i.e. 50% in bonds, 50% in money market. You should definately use this option as it will affect your current balance in its entirety.

Alternatively, there is usually another option called an investment exchange. For example, say you own $5k in a Dodge and Cox fund that you want to sell out of, but you want to split that $5k evenly across a mix of bond and money market funds. Then you can choose that option to do so.

In each of these options, you basically select the percentage you want your current balance allocated towards a new mix of bond and money market funds.

But remember, changing your investment election only changes your future contributions, whereas changing your current balance does what it indicates. I'm not sure how old you are, but even though your stock funds have done well, exposure to stocks for the long-term generally tends to provide better returns than bonds, and definately money market funds.