Both Millionaires and non-Millionaires increased their Stock Mutual Fund investing in September.

According to the September Spectrem Millionaire Confidence Index (SMICI), 43.8 percent of Millionaires with more than $1 million in investable assets invested in Stock Mutual Funds. That is the highest percentage of investments among six categories of investments, and marks the highest percentage of Millionaires investing in Stock Mutual Funds since April.

In the September Spectrem Affluent Investors Confidence Index, among those investors with $500,000 or more of investable assets, Stock Mutual Fund investing went up to 42.6 percent, the highest mark among that segment in more than six years (March of 2011).

At the same time as Stock Mutual Fund investing increased, interest in all other options among all investors decreased: Stock Investing down to 28.4 percent (from 30 percent), Cash Investing down to 14.8 percent (from 20 percent), Bond Mutual Fund investing down to 11.2 percent (from 12.4 percent), Real Estate investing down to 4 percent (from 4.8 percent) and Individual Bond investing down to 3.6 percent (from 8 percent). The Individual Bond investing was the lowest in more than two years (June of 2015) and Real Estate investing is at the lowest mark since February of 2014.

Millionaires vs. Non-Millionaires

When comparing Millionaires to non-Millionaires, it is not unusual for one segment to increase interest in investing while the other shows less interest. In September, both segments agreed on increasing investment in Stock Mutual Funds, and agreed on decreasing investing in Cash and Individual Bonds. The decrease among Millionaires in Cash investing was sizable, from 24.4 percent to 14.8 percent, the lowest interest in that market since June of 2014.

Among Millionaires, Real Estate investing saw a record low participation, but it increased slightly among non-Millionaires, to 4.1 percent.

Men Vs. Women

The Spectrem Confidence Index rose among both men and women in both the Millionaire and non-Millionaire categories. The men always report a higher confidence than women, but the difference among Millionaires dropped from a difference of 21 points to a difference of 15 points (23 for men to 8 for women).

However, women reported a drop in investment interests among all categories except Stock Mutual Fund investing, up to 38.6 percent, and there was a small increase in the percentage of women not investing (45.7 percent). Men reported an increase in interest in both Stock and Stock Mutual Fund investing, but interest in Individual Bond investing fell to 3.9 percent from 6.8 percent the previous month.

Republican vs. Democrat

The index rating among Millionaire Democrats rose in September to 9, a jump of 6 points, while Millionaire Republicans increased their index number to 24. Even the Affluent Index among Republicans climbed to 23.

There was almost equal interest among both Republicans and Democrats in Stock Mutual Fund and Cash Investing. More investors from both political parties indicated an intention to invest going forward.

Working vs. Retired

There was a huge increase in the percentage of retired investors who intend to invest going forward. Only 38.9 percent said they were not investing in the next month compared to 48.4 percent from August. Among working investors, 32.5 percent said they were not investing in the near future, which is increase of more than 6 percent from the previous month.

 

 

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