401K-What the heck do I choose? No clue where to begin.?

My employer offers 401K and I'd like to participate in it; However, there are so many options and unfortunately not much help.

How do I know what to choose from?
MONEY MARKET FUNDS?
BOND FUNDS?
BALANCED/HYBRID FUNDS?
DOMESTIC EQUITY FUNDS?
INTERNATIONAL/GLOBAL FUNDS?
SPECIALTY FUNDS?
FREEDOM FUNDS?

Are there ones to avoid all-together? Is there a website I can go on to?

Oh wow, it's kind of hard to say because we don't know about your financial situation and all. Generally, the younger you are, the more you'll want to be invested in stocks. The closer you are to retirement, the greater % of your portfolio you'll want to have in bonds. This is because bonds are less volatile (don't go up and down as much) as stocks.

Since it kind of sounds like you're just starting out in your career, I'd say put 60% in a domestic equity fund and 40% in an international equity fund, thereby ignoring bonds altogether for now.

Or if you really don't want to deal with it, those Freedom funds are supposed to automatically adjust your asset allocation as you get older, so they'll start off heavy in stocks, but as you get closer to retirement, your % of bonds will increase.

Go to morningstar.com to learn all about mutual funds.

Stay away from all of that. ;)

When you mention Freedom funds ..I think that is a Fidelity plan, then? If it is, they should have a site you can go to to compare funds... maybe only after you open the 401 ?
Anyway... generally ( if your youngish -under 35 or so ) you want to take a little risk your first few years...that would be " international/global"... but probably start with some of your contributions going to something more stable.. that would be the Freedom fund ( number of the fund is your retirement year, approximately.) or a "balanced "fund ( some stocks, some bonds)......you can let one or two of those types of funds be 50 or 60 percent of your investments...but DO get into some international funds at 20-25%... ( it's just where all the money is being made right now and most likely for at least the next few years ) The " domestic equity" funds are probably broken down by capitalization? If they are, get 15% in the large-caps...( for awhile, everything that made money was small-cap, but that may be changing..it is the BIG companies in the U.S. that do big parts of their business overseas that are starting to show real profits...)
Get in...at at least whatever percent your employer matches..and even if there's no match..contribute 'til you think it almost " hurts".... at least for awhile..( you can always change)...once you start getting quarterly reports, or you can start checking " performance" on- line, you will come to understand it a lot better and learn ways to improve your returns, etc.
( All this stuff sounds like a complicated, foreign- language, rocket-science project...BUT it's mostly common sense after you see what you're looking at... good luck)
P.S. If it is a Fidelity plan, I think you can get phone numbers off their web-site...and talk to someone, tell them who you work for they'll know what plan you have and can send you whatever info you need...even " beginning investing..how-to plan..kind of stuff" ....... I know when my daughters needed info, the rep on the phone could put it right on their screen.

Since the market is so topsy turvy right now, but you have this opportunity for a 401K, put all the money in money market funds, they are safe and earn roughly 5%. These funds sound like fidelity funds, so go to their web site fidelity.com and they will explain everything in detail. In fact, they have one of the best learning facilities on the web and they can take you from the basics all the way to expert levels of investing.

Fact - bull market we're in started in 2003 and it's not done yet (it's had some major corrections, all do). Fact - S&P over any 10 contiguous years averages > 11%, several mutual funds do better. Fact - any other investment available to the average investor doesn't compare. Fact - non-US has outperformed US by ~4X during this bull market, best have been LA, China, SEAsia. Fact - election year next year (typically positive), non-US growth in China, etc... is real and it's not slowing down...some were saying once 2008 Olympics is over China's done, the CEO of BHP says the Olympics is a flea on the back or China's growth, which will be huge over the next 5 years and then India will take the #1 spot. So far, if US goes down, non-US goes down more, if US goes up, non-US goes up more.

Using the info above: if you are conservative, pick the best funds available to you in your 401K based on morningstar.com's star recommendation/track record. Just find their 5 digit symbols and enter them, it's free. You typically would want a mix several types of funds ie Large Cap, Small Cap, Value, Growth, US, Non-US, specialty..I would avoid bonds and moneymarket for reasons stated above. Peter Lynch one of the greatest investors ever said the biggest mistake investors make is not staying in the market.. You can try to time market moves, ie when tech bubble was bursting I did go into moneymarket and bonds, and during this bull market when we've strayed way above 50 day moving average I moved to sidelines and got back in near August low, but I've been lucky and it takes a lot of work. Also your 401K provider and funds themselves may have penalties for this you would need to understand.

If you are aggressive, like me, I would pick the funds available to you that are LA, China, SEAsia, Emerging market centric with the best performance track record, also found in morningstar.com or your 401K provider. And if you have any specialty funds that have performed very well I would diversify some into those as well. I would also have a small position in US, just in case. I have over 200 funds available to me in my 401K and I'm only in the best 4.

As far as how much, you should find a way to at least invest what your employer matches. Rule of thumb to optimize is after that you should put your money in a Roth IRA if you qualify and if you exhaust that contribution limit then balance back to 401K, or for simplicity you skip the Roth. For more info on this, suzeorman.com is a good resource.

Last, but not least, I would keep a daily track of what you own, I use yahoo.finance and stockcharts.com(free). If you see something start to break trends(ie everything is going up but now this one is going down), then make a change, perhaps a 50% move, if you're wrong no big deal, if you're right then move the other 50%. I was also in commercial reit mutual funds and when the market started to recover in March of this year and they started rolling over that was a bad sign and I got out and glad I did. Point here is watch daily and you'll get a good feel for what's happening, but you'll only need to act maybe once or twice a year.

If this bull market succumbs to subprime, etc... ie 2009 (first year of new president typically not a good year for mkt, and will have had 6 yrs of bull run which is about par) then perhaps move some to mmkt/bonds or leave in up to you, and wait/watch which areas are tending to lead the next bull run ie 2011 and move some of your positions into those, and as they confirm their trends, add your positions. This has worked for me for over 25yrs.