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Comment by pottersbasilisk | Hacker News Reader

Arent people 401k's and pensions part of the market ?

FTA: "Wolff’s data shows that while stock ownership has increased over the past few decades, in 2013 (his most recent data point), less than half — 46 percent — of households owned stocks, either directly or through their holdings in some sort of fund (e.g., a retirement account)."

I'd say almost 50% of Americans owning equities is pretty good. It will never be near 100%.

Yeah, in many countries the number would be close to zero. German pension funds are only allowed to hold 10% of their value in stocks, so the rest goes into bonds and other low-risk investments. This is why Germany always want high interest rates in the Eurozone.

Doesn't make much difference how many people "own equities" if they don't own much.

They are, but most people don't have pensions and fewer people contribute to retirement funds than you may think.

This is a feature of this low inflation market. There's no incentive to do anything but hoard cash.

Except that's precisely the opposite of a rational market participant position. Hoarding cash is almost always a losing position, even now. As long as we don't have deflation, any cash is losing value.

Cash was the wrong choice of words.

Usually really rich people have more known downside risk from taxes. Lots of municipal bonds, treasury stuff and cash. If the money is tied up in company stock they often live off lines of credit.

Remember that top X% of wealth isn't the same as income.

you have it backwards. high interest rates makes cash more appealing vs. stocks (although inflation and interest rates are not the same thing)

The article addresses this.

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