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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SiouxPal who wrote (162843)	3/11/2009 4:27:10 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 361318

U.S. Millionaires’ Ranks Shrink to Lowest Since 2003 (Update2) By Alexis Leondis March 11 (Bloomberg) -- The millionaires’ club in the U.S. became more exclusive last year after a 38 percent drop in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index helped thin their ranks to the fewest since 2003. Families with a net worth of at least $1 million, excluding primary residences, declined to 6.7 million in 2008, a decrease from 9.2 million a year earlier, according to a survey of 3,750 high net-worth U.S. households conducted by Spectrem Group. That is the lowest number of millionaires since 2003, when there were 6.2 million people in that category, the Chicago- based consulting firm said in a statement today. “The culprit is not just the stock market, which we all know has dropped precipitously, but broad declines in the asset classes available to the nation’s wealthiest investors,” George H. Walper Jr., president of Spectrem Group, said in the statement. Confidence in the world economy waned in March as the recession proved deeper than forecast and the U.S. mounted new rescues of financial institutions, a survey of Bloomberg users on six continents showed. The Bloomberg Professional Global Confidence Index fell to 5.95 from 8.5 in February. A reading below 50 means pessimists outnumber optimists. About one-third of investors surveyed said their advisers had performed well during the economic crisis compared with 85 percent of investors who were satisfied with their advisers last spring. ‘Stressed’ “The client/adviser relationship is pretty stressed right now,” Walper said. “Wealthy investors are saying they’re not sure their advisers know what to do any better than they do.” So-called brand-name money managers, which Spectrem didn’t specify, are more likely to be used by 64 percent of investors because they are perceived as safer and more likely to receive government assistance than smaller firms, the survey said. The number of households with a net worth of more than $5 million declined to 840,000 in 2008 from 1.16 million in 2007, a 28 percent drop, according to the study. Affluent households, which the survey defined as those with net assets from $500,000 to $1 million, fell to 11.3 million from 15.7 million, also a 28 percent decrease, Spectrem said. The results were based on surveys of 3,000 affluent households throughout 2008 and 750 millionaire households conducted in November and December. Spectrem uses third-party market research firms to identify wealthy individuals and proprietary models to analyze their data, Walper said. To contact the reporter on this story: Alexis Leondis in New York aleondis@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: March 11, 2009 15:09 EDT