--- title: "Older Americans Now Own 80% of the Stock Market —\_Here's Why That's a Problem" description: Older Americans own an increasingly large majority of the stock market, and there are huge risks if they sell shares for safer investments. authors: - name: Pete Grieve role: Lead News Reporter url: https://money.com/author/pete-grieve/ bio: Pete Grieve is a personal finance reporter. In his time at Money, Pete has covered everything from car buying to credit cards to the housing market. education: University of Chicago, BA Political Science at_money_since: 2022 articles: 602 covers: - Investing - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes social: - https://twitter.com/pete_grieve - https://linkedin.com/in/pete-grieve-b5aa02138 - https://www.facebook.com/petegrieve4 editors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Investing - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2024-01-29T16:04:25.000Z' modified: '2024-01-29T16:04:25.000Z' section: Investing tags: - News - stocks word_count: 472 canonical: https://money.com/older-americans-own-most-stock-market/ type: NewsArticle source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Photo-illustration of a retiree's hand reaching down and grabbing a bar graph.](https://img.money.com/2024/01/News-Retirees-Own-80-Percent-Stock-Market.jpg) Americans 55 and older have a large and growing share of stock ownership, and that could prove to be a major problem for the market in the event of a downturn. The share of equities held by people who are at or near retirement age (55+) has climbed to about 80%, up from 60% two decades ago, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by Rosenberg Research. And Americans 70 and older now have an "astonishing" 30% share. “As the stock market breaks fresh highs, a sinister downside risk is lurking in the shadows — your grandma,” economist David Rosenberg said in a newsletter Wednesday. ## Invest as little or as much as you want with a Robinhood portfolio ### With Robinhood, you can build a balanced portfolio and trade stocks, ETFs and options as frequently as you want, commission-free. Click your state to start investing today! [Start Investing](https://money.com/pr/r31b8d158d2e?ap_referrer=%2Folder-americans-own-most-stock-market%2F) Why should we worry about retirees owning so much of the [stock market](https://money.com/how-to-buy-stocks/)? The concern stems from the fact that older investors can’t weather a downturn in the same way as younger investors, who tend to have longer time horizons for their investments. The [S&P 500](https://money.com/how-to-invest-in-sp500/) hit a new record high earlier this month, and the index is up 22% in the past year. If the stock market takes a dip, older investors might decide it's a good time to sell equities in order to shift to less volatile investments like [bonds](https://money.com/what-is-a-bond/) or cash. ## Older Americans own larger share of the stock market At the end of 2019, the share of equity ownership by Americans ages 55 and over was lower — around 75%. A decade ago, it was roughly 70%, and 20 years ago it was only about 60%. This growth is a potential issue for the health of the market. “Retirees don't have the luxury to buy and hold through a market downturn,” Rosenberg wrote. “If a downturn does materialize, demographically induced selling is a force that could exacerbate the spiral powerfully.” The thinking goes that Americans who are at or near retirement age are more likely to sell stocks or even exit the market entirely if their portfolios start to take a hit because they’ll want to make sure they have enough money in retirement. This behavior could worsen a sell-off. As older Americans' ownership share has risen, there's been a decline in the share of equities ownership by people ages 40 to 54. It's at about 15% currently, down from 20% a decade ago and roughly 30% in 1990, according to the report. Keep in mind, however, that individual investors aren't the only holders of stocks. In fact, institutional investors own a majority of public companies' equities, according to [Fed data](https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/20231207/z1.pdf). So while it's true that retirees have strong influence in the stock market and their behaviors are therefore important to understand, they're also not the only big players. ![](https://s3.consumersadvocate.org/prd/image/image/16291/medium_00c49a6e-a3eb-40b2-b805-13b4258cd431.png) Become a better investor with Robinhood [INVEST TODAY](https://money.com/pr/w589e9f64e7d?ap_referrer=%2Folder-americans-own-most-stock-market%2F) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/older-americans-own-most-stock-market/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Investing", "item": "https://money.com/investing/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Stocks", "item": "https://money.com/stocks/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Older Americans Now Own 80% of the Stock Market — Here's Why That's a Problem" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/older-americans-own-most-stock-market/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/older-americans-own-most-stock-market/", "name": "Older Americans Now Own 80% of the Stock Market — Here's Why That's a Problem", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2024-01-29T16:04:25.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/older-americans-own-most-stock-market/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/older-americans-own-most-stock-market/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-01-29T16:04:25.000Z" }, { "@type": "NewsArticle", "headline": "Older Americans Now Own 80% of the Stock Market — Here's Why That's a Problem", "articleSection": "Investing", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2024/01/News-Retirees-Own-80-Percent-Stock-Market.jpg", "width": 2880, "height": 1920, "caption": "News-Retirees-Own-80-Percent-Stock-Market" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Pete Grieve", "url": "https://money.com/author/pete-grieve/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/pete-grieve/#author", "description": "Pete Grieve is a personal finance reporter. 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