Many millennials aren’t doing anything to prepare for retirement.

That’s according to a survey from Invstr, a social finance app, which took the financial pulse of millennials and found that 48.75 percent said they had neither a pension nor a retirement investment account.

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Of those who do, 27.25 percent said they had a 401(k) or IRA, 12.35 percent said they had a personal retirement investment account and 11.65 percent said they had both a company pension and a personal retirement investment account.

The survey also found that millennials’ financial literacy leaves a lot to be desired. Asked about their attitudes toward their financial futures, 51.60 percent of respondents said they were worried and wanted to do something about it while 18.8 percent said they were worried but didn’t know what to do.

Thirty percent trusted their friends to give them financial advice, 62.15 percent trusted family and 36.4 percent relied on themselves.

But 40.6 percent have not invested in any of the choices given: an IRA, a 401(k), the stock market, bonds and commodities, mutual funds, bitcoin, gold or crowdfunding.

Just 18.9 percent said they’d invested in an IRA, while 40.5 percent had done so in a 401(k); surprisingly, 6.3 percent had opted for gold and nearly the same percentages had chosen either bitcoin (3.4 percent) or crowdfunding (3.2 percent).

Considering that only 62.35 percent said they were familiar with 401(k)s and 39.35 percent were familiar with IRAs, perhaps the popularity of those less conventional methods of investing shouldn’t be so surprising; after all, 7.35 percent said they were familiar with neither type of retirement savings account, nor even with regular savings accounts.

Almost 35 percent of respondents were not comfortable investing in the stock market, and an additional 38 percent were only “somewhat comfortable” — while most were clueless about the contribution limit for IRAs in the 2015/2016 tax year; 80 percent got it wrong when asked.

And 77 percent of respondents did a majority of their banking and investing via mobile devices, tablets or computers.

Instant Insights /

Study shows half of millennials lack retirement accounts

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