The Streak

Chart above via today’s New York Times.

There are some technicalities, of course, but the streak is still the streak, and it’s impressive.

The New York Times notes that the individual investor has not participated in the bull market to the extent they should have – or would have in a previous era. In 2007, the top 10% of households owned 81% of the stock market and now they own 84% of it.

As many people sit on the sidelines, the divergence between the wealthy and the rest of the country has widened. In 2016, the last year with solid data, the wealth of the median American household — which is heavily concentrated in the home itself — was 34 percent below where it was just before the Great Recession, according to research from Mr. Wolff.

The fact that stocks recovered at a greater pace than people’s home values is less a function of the markets being frothy and more a function of the extreme highs for home values that had to be worked off. The wealthy have been even further separated economically from those who have not been able to participate in the stock market or the corporate profits boom over the last decade.

Michael and I got into some of the context around this streak the other day…

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