Public transportation is key to the lives of many Americans and anathema to Americans who would rather stay home than travel with others.

But for those who take public transportation, it provides time to get some other things done, and for some of those taking public transportation, the thing to get done is to access financial market information.

A survey of affluent investors by Millionaire Corner asked how investors access media such as financial websites and blogs while taking public transportation. More than one-third (37 percent) said they do not take public transportation, and 12 percent said they do not access media while taking public transportation.

So of the remaining 51 percent, 23 percent use their smartphone to access media, while 14 percent actually read the newspaper. Seven percent use a tablet, while 6 percent use a laptop computer to get onto the Internet while riding the train or bus.

The 51 percent of affluent investors accessing media on public transportation were segmented by age, gender and other factors. For instance, while 18 percent of males read the newspaper, only 10 percent of women on public transportation read the printed word. Women are more likely to use their smartphone then men (26 percent to 19 percent).

There are demographic differences between young and old investors and investors with a high net worth and those with a low net worth. For instance, 46 percent of investors with a net worth of $100,000 use smartphones while on public transportation to just 21 percent of those with a net worth of $5 million. On the other hand, those wealthier investors are more likely to be reading a newspaper (18 percent) than those less wealthy investors (5 percent).

Among affluent investors under the age of 40, no one reads the newspaper. Instead, 44 percent use their smartphone to access media on public transportation. Seventeen percent use their computer or laptop. Interestingly, 27 percent of those under 40 never use public transportation while 37 percent of those over the age of 40 don’t travel with others.

Corporate executives prefer the newspaper (23 percent) to Business Owners (11 percent). Unmarried investors tend to prefer smartphones (30 percent) to married investors (20 percent), and that difference fully reflects the difference in public transportation use (29 percent of unmarried investors do not use public transportation to 39 percent of married investors).

 

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