Archive for May 27th, 2005

The Rich Get Richer

May 27th, 2005 -- Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

I read an interesting article today that says, to sum things up, that the rich get richer. Nothing new, right? Well I thought there were some interesting tidbits:

Millionaire Ranks Hit New High
http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/millionaire_1.html

  • The number of U.S. households with a net worth of $1 million or more rose 21% in 2004… There now are 7.5 million millionaire households in the U.S. …The study excluded the value of primary residences, but included second homes and other real estate.
  • The studies suggest that despite falling wages for nonmanagement employees in 2004, the fortunes of those at the top continued to rise. .. They also tend to invest in higher-risk and potentially faster-growing investments, including hedge funds, private-equity funds and debt instruments.
  • Reflecting their doubts about the future of the financial markets and the economy, the affluent continue to hold large amounts of cash. The Spectrem survey showed that 9% of their assets were in cash deposits.
  • Households with net worth of $3 million or more garnered 34% of their wealth last year from investment gains, according to the Spectrem survey. Only 31% of their wealth last year came from compensation.
  • The wealthy remain highly skeptical of financial advisers, given their stock-market losses in 2001 and the wave of scandals on Wall Street. Fully 30% of affluent investors make most of their financial decisions without the help of a professional … Only 10% let their advisers make all the decisions.
  • In 2004, investors with total assets of more than $500,000 had 46% of their holdings in investible assets, such as stocks and bonds. Of the remainder, they held 21% in privately held businesses, 6% in insurance and annuities, 10% in their primary residence, 7% in other real estate, including second homes, and 10% in retirement plans.
  • The richest investors kept more of their wealth in investments, as opposed to hard assets. Investors with total assets of more than $3 million had 49% of their holdings in investible assets. Investors with from $500,000 to $1 million had 29% in investible assets.

The thing I found interesting was that more money was made through the market than through hard assets like property.