Jay, as usual, you always ask incredible questions. As I remember, the last federal reserve numbers I saw indicated that stock ownership by individuals was declining and represented only about 25% of investments.
This site is interesting and posted by Tomasso on the BK thread:
ici.org
The net is that for the month of Jan, only about 25% of net inflows into mutual funds went into stocks. This 25% figure seems to come up again.
It seems to me that the folks that control the money, by and large, don't have a large amount of it invested in stocks. I see two reasons for this: 1) I call them the Depression Children, and 2) about the time they would have started the savings phase of their lives, the 73-74 bear market happened. For many in the 70+ age group, buying a bond, rather than a CD, is an aggressive investment.
The amazing thing that has happened is that they have been changing all the rules. For folks of even modest means, they are not consuming their investments in retirement and are adding to it fairly dramatically.
Over the next decade or so, this money is going to be moving to the hands of the baby-boomers. Now then, are the baby-boomers going to be content to invest in CD's and bonds. I don't think so!
Since we live in close proximity, I think you would have to admit that, simply by considering the number of schools being built, population growth is being caused by both ends of the age spectrum. The bigger issue, I believe, is that the older one becomes, generally, the less toys one needs to acquire to find contentment. Thus, more money goes into investments. Judging where its going before it's already going somewhere else will be of great benefit in the future.
Hope this helps!
Berney |
