AARP Hearing Center
Since the brutal economic downturn of the late 2000s, the stock market has been booming, with the S&P 500 Index nearly quadrupling in value from below 700 in March 2009 to above 2,600.
Many Americans haven’t benefited from that growth, in part because fewer of them are investors. The Federal Reserve System’s latest Survey of Consumer Finances shows that among most age groups, the share of direct stock ownership declined significantly between 2007 and 2016.
But one age group held steady. Some 19.6 percent of households headed by Americans 75 and older directly own stocks, nearly the same as the 20.2 percent who held investments in 2007. The 75-plus Americans now have the highest percentage of stock ownership of any age group.
Other age groups saw declines. The 55-to-64 group took the sharpest drop, with stock ownership falling from 21.3 percent to 15.5 percent.