Despite the turmoil in the financial markets during 1994, individual investors today remain heavily committed to stocks and bonds, according to data gathered for Money magazine's Small Investor Index.
The typical individual investor now has 64.3 percent of his or her portfolio in stocks and bonds. That is a slight increase from 63.9 percent in 1993 and an enormous jump from 50.4 percent at the end of 1990. (The changes reflect both price moves and investor activity.) Stocks now represent 41.1 percent of the average portfolio, up from 29.5 percent in 1990.Equity mutual funds have shown particularly strong growth over those four years, climbing to 10.5 percent of the typical investor's portfolio from 3.9 percent. Bond holdings have grown to 23.2 percent today from 20.9 percent in 1990.
The money that has gone into stocks and bonds has come mostly out of bank certificates of deposit, money-market funds and other cash instruments, as interest rates on them have fallen. Cash investments now account for 34.1 percent of the average portfolio, down from 34.6 percent in 1993 and 48.1 percent in 1990.
CDs have experienced the sharpest decline. At the end of 1990, CDs held 24.6 percent of the average investor's assets; today that share has dropped to 12.9 percent. Americans' appetite for real estate securities and gold has remained basically unchanged; each asset still accounts for less than 1 percent of the typical portfolio.
Last week the Money Index, which tracks the typical investor's holdings, rose $197 to $47,965.