Column: Millions of Americans are fixated on stock prices. They shouldn't pay such close attention

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Stock prices aren't relevant to most people's lives, so why do we care so much about the markets?

The widely watched stock market indicator has been all over the place this month: two triple-digit gains and no fewer than 10 triple-digit declines out of the 17 trading days so far this year .

these stories allow us to construct a coherent picture out of a welter of complex and confusing events and conditions. More important, the stock market is irrelevant to most people’s financial situation. “For the middle class, wages are much more important than stock prices,” Wolff says. Among households with net worth around the national median of $121,700, only about 11% own shares of stock; among the poorest 20%, with net worth of $6,400 or less, only about 5% own stocks.

Holdings in defined contribution plans such as 401s tend to be in stock mutual funds, such as index funds — about two-thirds of the more than $7.3 trillion invested in 401 plans as of mid-2021,. An additional 10% is placed in bond or money market mutual funds. Over the last year or two, the narrative of stock trading as a pathway to wealth has gained in prominence. As Ghilarducci asserts, that’s a distinctly unwholesome development, especially for younger people who may just now be entering their prime earning years.

“We have to regulate these financial predators who traffic in the idea that wealth-building will happen if people have access to these risky products and services,” Ghilarducci says. In 2015, the latest calculations available, Social Security accounted for more than half the income of 37.3% and more than nine-tenths of the income for 12.1% of men over 65. The program provided more than half the income for 42% and more than nine-tenths of the income for about 15% of women over 65.

 

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Nice job. Of course no one wants to paid attention to this.

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