I have what I think might be a silly question.:confused: My brother started a IRA quite some years ago. He put an amount in which was around $1400 to $1500 (from what he could remember.) From there nothing else has been contributed. My questions are, is it possible for this IRA to have been wasted away from fees and or just bad investments? And if not how can I find how it is doing?

My first question, if it is your brother's account why should you be trying to track it down? You will run into privacy concerns with banks/brokers/funds who probably will not even talk to you.

All that said... you can track down an account if you know the institution where the account was opened. The records go back a long way.

If the account is stale, such as a simple bank account, the money may revert to the state in which it resides. Those funds are not lost, they are just not earning anything. To restore an inactive account you may need to send a letter to the state. Many have web sites where you can look for "lost" money using a name and SSN.