Private Markets Are Coming for Your 401(k)
Disclosure. This is independent research published for information only. It is not investment advice, a personal recommendation, or an offer to buy or sell any security, and it takes no account of your objectives or circumstances. Figures are point-in-time as of July 15, 2026 and are not updated after publication. Forward-looking statements are uncertain and outcomes may differ materially. The author holds no position in the securities discussed and has received no compensation from any issuer named, unless stated otherwise above. Past performance does not indicate future results. Disclosures.
A firefighter's pension can own private companies, infrastructure and private loans. The person saving through a 401(k) at a private employer generally owns listed stocks and bonds and nothing else. In 2022, alternatives were roughly 34% of state and local pension assets; in 2024, they were 0.1% of defined-contribution assets. That gap is now being closed deliberately — an executive order in August 2025, a proposed Department of Labor fiduciary framework in March 2026, and target-date products already built by BlackRock, Great Gray and Goldman Sachs to carry private allocations into plans workers already own. Behind it sits $9.9 trillion, where a single percentage point is about $99 billion. The interesting question is not whether private assets can perform. It is whether they can be packaged for an account that has to produce a transferable value every day.
In this essay
- The regulatory sequence that changed fiduciary risk, and what remains only proposed
- How target-date funds became the distribution vehicle — and the denominator effect that stresses them
- Valuation fairness between the participant who leaves and the participants who stay
- Why access is not the same as good access, and who actually benefits
Read the full essay
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