One-third of Americans wealth is now tied to the stock market a record high

Americans have never had more riding on the stock market.A record one-third of all household wealth in the US was tied to stocks at the end of 2025, according to Federal Reserve data — a sign that the AI-fueled bull market is showering investors with gains while leaving them increasingly exposed to a painful downturn.Households and nonprofit organizations held $67.77 trillion in directly and indirectly owned equities at year-end, accounting for nearly 33% of total assets, according to the data highlighted by Axios.The figure eclipses the roughly 30% peak reached during the meme-stock and SPAC frenzy of 2021 and tops the 27% level seen at the height of the dot-com boom in early 2000, the news site noted.The surge has been fueled by a stock-market rally that added $10.31 trillion to household portfolios in 2025 alone, boosting equity holdings by nearly 18% in a single year.“The willingness of households to hold a rising portion of their total financial assets in equities [has] made retail investors overall an important driver of the bull market in equities in recent years,” JPMorgan analysts wrote in a recent report.The gains have been concentrated among the wealthiest Americans.The richest 10% of households own roughly 87% of all stock-market wealth, according to Federal Reserve data, meaning the market’s boom has disproportionately benefited affluent investors while much of the country continues to grapple with elevated living costs and lingering inflation pressures.As a result, wealthy households, buoyed by soaring portfolios, continue spending freely while many lower- and middle-income Americans report increasing financial strain.That divide has contributed to what some economists describe as a “K-shaped” economy in which wealthy households get richer and poorer households decline.The concentration of wealth in stocks also raises the stakes for investors.A sharp market reversal would wipe out trillions of dollars in paper wealth and could reverberate ...