Market Down; Stock Picks Looking Better; Mutual Funds for 401(k)

With the stock market going down (especially today after the employment numbers were reported!) my stock picks keep looking better and better. Overall they're down 9%, ranging from 4.8% price increase in Medtronic to a 16.7% price decrease in Cisco. When I say "down," I mean down since I've analyzed them since that is how they're being tracked in my spreadsheet. This basically means that it was a good call not to invest in my stock picks just yet (except for Medtronic, which is actually up).

So, for now I'm holding out on investing in the stock market. This "strategy" can be called market timing, but in my opinion it may be wised to wait a bit to see how everything will get sorted out since bad news keep coming out and a number of stocks on my "final" list are dependant on the overall economy since Coach and Harley-Davidson are in the "Consumer Discretionary" category, while Bank of America is obviously in the "Financials." Of course, there is a reward for taking a risk in the turbulent times, but at this time it's not clear whether the reward is great enough to compensate for the risk. In a way, that's what investing is all about: balancing risks and rewards to maximize the rewards with minimal risks.

Jumping to a different topic. I will be looking at mutual funds (and maybe ETFs), as the time will allow, while stock market is figuring itself out. Most of the mutual funds (although not all!) have already made capital gains distributions, so it's a good time to start investing in them. Also, I will need to pick mutual funds for my new 401(k) plan, which will involve looking over 20+ mutual funds. One thing I'm not clear about is whether load/no-load mutual fund structure matters in 401(k) plans since the benefit administrator has some sort of a pricing structure worked out with the employer. I'm wondering if and whether this differs from employer to employer and how those "load" fees are passed to plan participants. This may make a significant difference in how I choose mutual funds for the 401(k) plan. Any thoughts on this?