Record Household Equity Exposure As Stock Markets Surge
Yesterday, the Federal Reserve updated its quarterly look at the balance sheets of macroeconomic sectors of the United States. One of the metrics we can use the data for is the aggregate exposure to the equity market of the household sector. In the charts below, we show the percentage of total assets and financial assets that households have put in the equity market, either via direct holdings of stocks or exposure to stocks via mutual fund ownership.
In the first chart, we show these data for the combined household and nonprofit sector. Data specific to the household sector only doesn’t go back as far, but the two different flavors of household equity exposure tell the same tale: households are highly exposed to stocks, with a record share of their financial assets and total assets sitting in the equity market at current market values.