I recently moved some investments from disparate financial management companies into a single entity.
I was pretty shocked how just a recent statement and a few forms (that anyone could have filled out) seemed to be all it took to get the job done. Large amounts of investments moved ... no phone or email confirmations. It just happened.
Everything is there, but the ease of the process has been a little unsettling.
Ah, you have experienced ACATS! If interested, you can read more about it here: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/how-acats-transfers-w...
If retirement is in a general "retire at some age" fund and not individual stocks, is there a law that all stockholders in that class have the same allocations?
Target date funds are no different than any other fund. The fund holds a given allocation; shareholders of the fund hold shares of the fund overall. There's no concept of individual fund participants having different allocations.
If you and I are in the same class of the same fund we would have the same allocation. However if you are in Vanguard Retirement 2050 and I am in Fidelity Retirement 2050 we likely would not. Also possibly if I am in the Admiral Class shares of Retirement 2050 and you are in the Retail Class.