In 1995, U.S. households held similar amounts of assets in home equity and corporate stocks: US$4.3 trillion in stocks and US$4.7 trillion in home equity. (See: Federal Reserve Flow of Funds Table B100.)

Over the decade, the situation changed dramatically, so that by 2004, households held US$4.8 trillion more in home equity than in corporate stocks, as the graph shows.

	Home Equity vs. Stock Holdings

This difference came about because of the crash in the stock market in 2000-2001 and because of the steady increase in home values throughout the decade.

[Note: ‘Home Equity’ is calculated by subtracting home mortgages from the market value of residential property owned by this sector.]

This entry was posted on Monday, February 27th, 2006 at 1:18 pm and is filed under Equities, Individual Investors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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