Good news: If your retirement nest egg sits with Vanguard, you potentially have access to a lot of great funds without leaving the Vanguard family.

But there's a hitch.

The sad fact about investing for retirement in a 401k is that your options are limited to the funds your plan administrators choose to make available. Typically, those options are limited to middle-of-the-road funds the administrators deem safe enough to keep employees from losing their shirts — and the administrators themselves from losing their jobs.

So even you have a Vanguard 401(k), you aren't likely to be able to invest in the Vanguard Precious Metals & Mining Fund (VGPMX), for example. And to be quite honest, that's a good thing. The fund is incredibly volatile, and investors have had a bad habit of buying at the fund's highs and selling at the lows.

On the other hand, you aren't likely to have access to the Vanguard Emerging Markets Index Fund (VEIEX), and that's one fund I highly recommend for 401(k) investors (not for all of your money, of course, but a 5% portion).

In fact, I believe that as the global economy begins to heal, there will come a time when having an allocation to emerging markets will be a virtual requirement for investors with long-range objectives, like retirement. That's why I'd insist you ask your plan administrator to add this fund to the mix of choices your company includes in its 401(k) plan now.

Here are several other Vanguard funds I'd like to see in your 401(k) portfolio. Some of these won't be available to you — but you can go to your plan administrator and request them. You might need to rally some of your colleagues to apply pressure on your benefits department. But remember, it's your retirement, not theirs. Don't be shy.

You Can't Go Wrong with the PRIMECAP Management Team

I strongly believe you should have a substantial portion of your 401(k) money in growth funds, and my first choice is a trio of Vanguard funds run by the redoubtable team at PRIMECAP Management: PRIMECAP (VPMCX), PRIMECAP Core (VPCCX) and Capital Opportunity (VHCOX).

Though all three funds are now closed to new investors outside of established 401(k) plans, they may be available to you. If so, consider yourself lucky, and don't hesitate to give a big slug of money to this group of managers that takes a value-oriented eye to buying growth stocks. Their funds are the single largest component of my retirement and non-retirement accounts, as well as those of my wife and kids.

NEXT: Vanguard Wellington