Visualizations : The long decline of the individual investor

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Created by: pick Created on: Sunday June 08, 4:50 PM

Data file: Owners of US Equity ($million, unadjusted), 1952q1-2008q1

Data source: US Federal Reserve

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Comments (1)

Anonymous says:

A -- This is an intriguing visualization highlighting the impressive postwar growth of institutional investors and financial institutions. Presenting these data in percentage terms portrays a clear narrative of decline in relative household investment asset _ownership_, but I wonder whether it may also distort the relative weight of the individual investor within the broader marketplace, especially if we consider how individual investors are ultimately participating in many of these other institutional segments as beneficiaries of pension funds, annuitants of life insurance cos., and investors in mutual funds, ETFs, and closed-end funds. If you consider these vehicles and institutions as ultimately constitutive of household wealth, then individual investors still are constituting (indirectly) +85% of the market. And given that direct ownership of equity by "households" was probably concentrated among a much smaller elite in the earlier period, the rise of institutions and investment cos. managing assets for pensioners might therefore be indicative of a broadening of participation, albeit indirect, of smaller households who lack the resources for directly managing their own stocks. It would be interesting to see the same figure in gross, rather than percentage, terms -- of both assets and the number of households represented. -- Josh Humphreys

Posted Monday June 09, 10:45 AM
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Visualizations : The long decline of the individual investor

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