Datastream

In One Chart: Two Decades of Stock Ownership in America

Published

2 weeks ago

April 6, 2021

Carmen Ang

How Many Americans Own Stocks?

Can I share this graphic?
Yes. Visualizations are free to share and post in their original form across the web—even for publishers. Please link back to this page and attribute Visual Capitalist.

When do I need a license?
Licenses are required for some commercial uses, translations, or layout modifications. You can even whitelabel our visualizations. Explore your options.

Interested in this piece?
Click here to license this visualization.

The Briefing

In 2020, approximately 55% of Americans owned some form of stock
That’s 5 percentage points lower than U.S. stock ownership in 2000
Stock ownership is strongly linked to household income. Last year, 84% of U.S. households earning $100,000+ owned stock, compared to just 22% of those making less than $40,000

How Many Americans Own Stocks?

2020 was an exceptionally volatile year for the stock market. But how many Americans were directly impacted by last year’s market highs and lows?

In other words, how many Americans own stocks as a part of their investment portfolios?

Two Decades of Stock Ownership in America

Stock ownership in the U.S. has dipped over the last two decades.

In a survey by Gallup, about 55% of Americans claimed to own some form of stock in 2020—either an individual stock, a stock mutual fund, or in a self-directed 401(k) or IRA. This is a significant decrease from 2000, when 60% of Americans owned stock:

Year	Yes, Owns Stock	No, Does Not Own Stock
2000	60%	39%
2001	62%	36%
2002	63%	36%
2003	61%	38%
2004	63%	36%
2005	61%	39%
2006	62%	37%
2007	62%	37%
2008	61%	38%
2009	59%	40%
2010	56%	43%
2011	57%	43%
2012	53%	46%
2013	52%	47%
2014	54%	45%
2015	55%	44%
2016	52%	46%
2017	54%	45%
2018	55%	43%
2019	55%	44%
2020	55%	45%

*Note: Numbers may not add up to 100% due to rounding.

Stock ownership was relatively high in the early 2000s, but it dipped slightly after the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Since then, it’s hovered around 50-55%.

High Income, High Stock Ownership

While more than half the U.S. population owns some form of stock, ownership is concentrated among higher-income groups.

For example, in 2020, 77% of households making less than $40,000 per year didn’t own stock. In contrast, only 15% of households earning $100,000+ per year weren’t invested in some form of stock:

Yearly Household Income (USD)	Yes, Owns Stock (2020)	No, Does Not Own Stock (2020)
$100,000+	84%	15%
$40,000 - $99,999	65%	35%
<$40,000	22%	77%

There was also a strong correlation between formal education and stock ownership. In 2020, 85% of Americans who owned stock had a postgraduate degree, compared to 33% who had no formal post-secondary education.

»Interested in the stock market but not sure where to begin? You might enjoy this article, Stock Market Basics: How Do Investors Choose Stocks?

Where does this data come from?

Source: Gallup
Details: Survey results are based on combined data from telephone interviews conducted March 13-22, 2020, and April 1-14, 2020. The data represents a random sample of 2,027 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia

Related Topics:investing us stock market mutual funds stock ownership 401(k)high income earners

Click for Comments

Datastream

Here’s What $1,000 Invested in Vaccine Stocks Would Be Worth Now

Ever wonder what you would have gotten if you invested $1,000 into the different vaccine stocks at the start of the pandemic?

Published

2 days ago

April 18, 2021

Aran Ali

Vaccine stocks performance during the pandemic

The Briefing

Three of seven COVID-19 vaccine stocks have outperformed the S&P 500 since the beginning of the global pandemic
Novavax is the highest performing vaccine stock, returning 1,549% to shareholders

Vaccine Stocks During a Pandemic

It’s often said that with every crisis comes great opportunity.

While such catastrophes do create upheaval and uncertainty in financial markets, they can also lead to new opportunities for investors, as asset classes react to different environments.

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic on March 11, 2020, the performance of vaccine stocks have been varied—but with some notable winners that notched triple or quadruple digit returns.

Here’s how much a $1,000 investment would be worth as of March 31, 2021, if you had put money into each vaccine stock at the start of the pandemic:

Stock	Value of Investment	% Growth	Market Cap ($B)
Novavax	$16,491	1,549.1%	$14.3
Moderna	$5,019	401.9%	$59.9
BioNTech	$3,247	224.7%	$31.3
Johnson & Johnson	$1,252	25.2%	$419.8
Pfizer	$1,122	12.2%	$207.2
AstraZeneca	$1,121	12.1%	$93.8
Sanofi	$1,096	9.6%	$105.2

The Business of Vaccines

The returns on vaccine stocks have varied greatly. They are staggering in the case of Novavax and Moderna, but also seem quite underwhelming, when considering the likes of Sanofi, AstraZeneca, and Pfizer.

One factor for the discrepancy in stock price performance is the revenue potential from vaccine sales relative to the rest of the existing business, as vaccine sales will have a much greater impact on the fundamentals of smaller companies.

For example, before the pandemic, Novavax had revenues of just $18.7 million—this meant that capturing any portion of global vaccine sales would create massive value for shareholders. On the flipside, vaccine sales are much less likely to impact the fundamentals of Sanofi’s business, since the company already is generating $40.5 billion in revenue.

To put it into perspective, analysts are expecting total sales from COVID-19 vaccines to be around $100 billion, with $40 billion in post-tax profits.

Vaccine Stocks vs the S&P 500

Even in a booming and valuable industry, it’s difficult to identify the long-term leaders. For example, in the mobile phone market, there was a time where the likes of Motorola, Nokia, and Blackberry appeared untouchable, but eventually lost out.

Similarly, with the limited information available at the start of the pandemic, few, if any, could have separated the winners and losers from this group with accuracy.

In the past year, the S&P 500 grew 44.9%—meaning that only three of the seven vaccine stocks have seen their share prices outperform the market.

Nobody said helping solve a global pandemic guarantees a pay off.

Where does this data come from?

Source: S&P Global Market Intelligence
Notes: Investment growth is calculated between March 11, 2020-March 31, 2021. All market capitalization values are as of March 31, 2021.

Datastream

Bitcoin is the Fastest Asset to Reach a $1 Trillion Market Cap

Bitcoin is now part of a select very few assets that hold a market cap greater than $1 trillion. How long did it take to get there?

Published

1 week ago

April 12, 2021

Aran Ali

The Briefing

Bitcoin (BTC) hit a $1 trillion market cap in just 12 years, making it the fastest asset to do so
Investor sentiment towards BTC appears to be at extreme bullishness, with the asset adding roughly $500 billion in market cap just in 2021

Bitcoin is the Fastest Asset to Reach $1 Trillion

The world is moving forward at an accelerated pace. Historically, it’s taken multiple decades for companies to be worth $1 trillion. For bitcoin, it took just 12 short years to reach such a milestone.

To help put things into perspective, here’s a look at how long it took America’s biggest tech companies to reach the $1 trillion market cap.

Asset	Time To Reach $1 Trillion	Current Market Cap
Microsoft	44 years	$1.9 trillion
Apple	42 years	$2.2 trillion
Amazon	24 years	$1.7 trillion
Google	21 years	$1.5 trillion
Bitcoin	12 years	$1.1 trillion

Market caps as of April 12, 2021

Extreme Bullish Sentiment

Bitcoin has been subject to widespread commotion in markets.

At the start of 2021, the cryptocurrency had a more modest market cap of $500 billion, but has gained more than another $500 billion since. An onslaught of headlines has contributed to extremely bullish investor sentiment, including:

1. CEOs begin to show interest
Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey have made sizable investments in bitcoin through Tesla and Square, respectively. It’s estimated the gain from Tesla’s $1.5 billion bitcoin investment was greater than the profits from the entirety of their business in 2020.

2. New ETFs on the block
Multiple Bitcoin ETFs focused were recently approved by Canadian regulators and some have already launched on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). For many years, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) was the only readily accessible investment vehicle trading on equity markets that had exposure to BTC.

3. Financial institutions finally joining in?
Mastercard, Visa, and Bank of New York Mellon have made announcements to make it easier for customers to use cryptocurrencies.

On to the Next Trillion?

Future projections for the price of bitcoin are garnering more extreme and widening price targets.

The accelerated rate of change today has many of the Big Tech companies already inching closer to the next trillion in value. Will bitcoin follow suit?

Where does this data come from?

Source: coinmarketcap.com
Notes: Financial data is as of April 12, 2021