Wall Street's Wild Week: Investors Live With It
Two-Thirds Worried About Their Own Finances
With more people in the market, more say they're affected by it. After the crash in October 1987, 20 percent of all adults said they'd been hurt by the drop in stock prices. That rose to 37 percent when the market dropped in July 2002. And it's 43 percent now, when you include people without stock investments. (As noted, it's 50 percent among stock and stock-fund owners.)
Again, though, fewer say they've been hurt "a great deal" -- 16 percent of all adults, and 20 percent of stock and stock-fund holders.
There are several likely reasons. The market's risk is built into public attitudes; 79 percent in this poll call the stock market a risky investment. The pain to most investors may be mitigated by their longtime frame, by factoring in past gains and by the fact that stockholders tend to be better off financially and so better positioned to handle the hit.
Among people with household incomes of more than $100,000, 93 percent own stocks or stock funds; among those in less-than-$50,000 households, it's 39 percent.
None of this, of course, eases the pain of the 16 percent who report a "great deal" of financial damage -- a minority of the public, but many millions of individuals.
RETIRE – Even with the insulation of a long-term investment, retirement worries are up. Forty-nine percent are not confident they will have adequate assets for retirement, higher than it's been in polling back to 1999.
Still, that's more a function of economic anxiety overall than of the market per se. Because they're better off in the first place, people with stock investments are more confident in their retirement resources than people without stocks, by 51 percent to 33 percent. And confidence is 16 points higher among those who own stock directly rather than through mutual funds, 61 percent to 45 percent -- again because they're better off in the first place.
RISK – Majorities have rated the market as "risky" going back to 1988, though it's spiked during bear markets. After the 1997 crash 69 percent called the market risky; that fell to 52 percent during the dot-com boom in 1999, but rose to 80 percent in July 2002 after accounting scandals and a market adjustment. At 79 percent it's essentially returned to that peak.
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