The Adore of Paper Wealth: Household Stock Exposure Close to Dotcom Levels

US households have been adding to their equity investments as whopping stock valuations enter its 10th year of a raging bull market.

Households’ financial assets currently invested in stocks has now exceeded only by the blow-off portion of the 2000 dot-com bubble.

In fact,  we are witnessing history, as the only other time households were this weighted in the stock market was during the:

  1. 2Q 1999
  2. 3Q 2000

The norm since 1952 regarding household stock holdings relative to other assets is 44.8%, today it is over 52%.  However, even though stock ownership seems to be up, 80% of the value is held by the wealthiest 10%.  Clearly, the Fed’s quantitative easing mostly benefited the Wall Street elites and disregarded the main street as the era of malinvestment is here as investors are on the hunt for yield.