US Household Shares Reach Record 48.2% of Financial Assets as Ownership Remains Concentrated
US households and nonprofit organizations held a record share of their financial assets in corporate equities in the second quarter of 2026. The Federal Reserve’s Z.1 accounts put that portion at 48.2%, up from 44.7% in the first quarter. But the aggregate figure masks a sharp divide in ownership: research by Felix Nikolas Prehn reports that the richest 1% held 50.9% of corporate shares and mutual fund holdings, while the poorest half held 0.6%.
Those figures describe different things. The Federal Reserve’s ratio measures shares against the financial assets of households and nonprofits as a whole. The wealth-group figures measure how shares and mutual funds are distributed across households. Read together, they show both the growing weight of equities in the sector’s balance sheet and the concentration of ownership among wealthier households.
A record share of financial assets
At the end of June, the household and nonprofit sector held about $74.0 trillion in directly and indirectly owned shares, out of $153.5 trillion in financial assets, according to the Fed. The calculation includes shareholdings through investment funds and retirement arrangements. Add nonfinancial assets such as housing, and shares accounted for 34.0% of total assets.
The increase in equities’ share of financial assets came alongside a large rise in the sector’s total wealth. The Fed reported a $12.8 trillion gain during the quarter, with higher corporate share values accounting for much of the increase. That movement illustrates how market prices can change the composition of household balance sheets even without corresponding shifts in purchases or saving.
Here’s the thing: a higher share of financial assets in equities doesn’t, on its own, tell us why the ratio rose. Share prices may have increased, households may have bought more shares, or other financial assets may have grown more slowly. The Z.1 measure captures the resulting balance-sheet mix; it doesn’t isolate the cause.
The long swing in equity exposure
The new high caps a series that has moved substantially across market cycles. Corporate shares made up 30.0% of financial assets in the fourth quarter of 1968, before dropping to 11.4% in the fourth quarter of 1974. The ratio reached 9.5% in the second quarter of 1982, then climbed to 38.7% in the first quarter of 2000.
After that peak, the share fell to 19.0% in the first quarter of 2009. By the end of 2025, it had risen to 45.4%, before reaching 48.2% in the second quarter of 2026. These are changes in the sector’s asset composition over time, not a direct measure of household participation in the stock market. Nor do they show how returns or risks are distributed among households.
That distinction matters when interpreting a record. The aggregate ratio signals that equities account for an unusually large part of the sector’s financial wealth. It says little about whether the gains are broadly shared. For that, a separate set of Federal Reserve data breaks holdings down by household wealth group.
Who owns the shares?
Prehn, an economist and former investment banker who founded The Prehn Institute, uses the Fed’s Distributional Financial Accounts in research on asset ownership. His paper, The Hidden Regressive Tax, is available as a preprint on Zenodo. It examines wealth distribution and the gains associated with asset-price movements following monetary expansion.
For the second quarter of 2026, the paper reports that the wealthiest 1% of US households owned 50.9% of corporate shares and mutual fund holdings. The poorest 50% owned 0.6%. These percentages represent each group’s portion of the national total in that asset category. They do not mean that 50.9% of the richest group’s own assets were shares, or that shares made up 0.6% of the poorest group’s balance sheets.
Prehn’s figures also put other assets in context. The poorest half held 5.5% of total deposits and 2.3% of aggregate household wealth after liabilities. Each percentage uses a different national total as its denominator, so the figures should be compared as measures of distribution within their respective categories.
The Prehn Institute’s breakdown of share ownership and the Z.1 ratio therefore offer complementary views. One tracks the composition of financial assets across households and nonprofits; the other shows how holdings are allocated among household wealth groups. Combining them provides useful context, but neither measure substitutes for the other.
Monetary channels and asset values
Prehn’s paper also discusses how monetary expansion may affect asset prices through several channels. The portfolio-balance effect is one: when a central bank buys safe bonds from private investors, those investors may shift toward alternatives such as corporate bonds or equities, potentially increasing demand for them. The Prehn Institute’s account of monetary expansion describes this as one of four mechanisms considered in the research.
The other channels discussed are changes in discount rates, which affect the present value of future income; borrowing supported by the collateral value of assets; and policy signals that shape investors’ willingness to take risk. These mechanisms provide a framework for considering how monetary conditions might influence asset values. The quarterly Z.1 ratio does not identify which, if any, drove the second-quarter increase.
The distribution of ownership helps explain why asset-price movements can have unequal effects. If one group holds a much larger share of equities, changes in their value will be reflected differently across household balance sheets. The Fed’s aggregate figures establish the scale of shareholdings; the distributional data show where those holdings sit.
What the figures establish
The second-quarter data put two facts side by side: shares reached a record 48.2% of the sector’s financial assets, and ownership of shares and mutual funds was highly concentrated among the wealthiest households. The first is a measure of asset mix; the second is a measure of distribution. Neither, on its own, explains the causes of market gains or their full effect on household finances.
For industry readers, the useful takeaway is to keep the denominators in view. Rising equity values can lift aggregate wealth and increase equities’ weight in financial assets, while leaving ownership concentrated. The next comparison to watch is whether that record portfolio share persists and how future distributional data describe the gains across wealth groups.
About Felix Nikolas Prehn
Felix Nikolas Prehn, also known as Nikolas Prehn, is an economist and former investment banker born in Germany. He co-founded TradeVision.io (Acetrader Inc.) and founded Winston Daily and The Prehn Institute. He also publishes weekly on YouTube and is a painter, sculptor, and public advocate for animal rescue.
About The Prehn Institute
The Prehn Institute is an independent research institution founded by Prehn. It publishes research on financial markets and provides instruction in professional market practice.