Why Inventory Possession Has Lastly Returned to Pre-2008 Crash Ranges

After 18 odd years, shares are lastly again in vogue. In response to analytics firm Gallup, 62% of People reported proudly owning firm shares in 2024 and 2025, a degree beforehand not seen since 2007, the 12 months the Nice Recession started.

No motive for this upturn in inventory market participation was given, however standard tech shares delivering bumper returns, larger accessibility because of the rise of on-line buying and selling platforms, and elevated entry to employment-based retirement plans are possible elements.

What the Knowledge Says

Since 1998, Gallup has been asking People annually whether or not they owned inventory in publicly traded firms, whether or not personally or with their partner. That doesn’t simply imply immediately proudly owning shares in particular person firms—investments in mutual funds or retirement financial savings accounts like a 401(ok) or IRA additionally rely.

The readings had been constant in the course of the ballot’s first decade, hovering round 60%. Then the Nice Recession struck, the inventory market crashed, many individuals misplaced their jobs and their financial savings, and belief within the monetary sector was severely dented.

Over the next decade, inventory possession remained nicely beneath the prior established norm of about 60%. It hit a low of 52% in each 2013 and 2016 and didn’t bounce again to 60% till 2023. The quantity once more reached 62% in 2024 and 2025, not far off the 63% file set in 2004.

Why Has Inventory Possession Bounced Again?

A number of elements may trigger inventory possession to fluctuate, together with market booms and busts, family funds, and entry to employment-based retirement plans. So it is troublesome to assign an increase or fall in inventory possession to anyone issue.

The shock of the 2007-2008 monetary disaster and the market crash had been possible elements within the decline in possession within the following years. Many individuals additionally might have needed to liquidate their accounts to fulfill bills within the extended, painful recession that adopted.

In recent times, although, the proportion of staff with entry to retirement plans has been climbing, from 54% in 2010 to 66% in 2024. The rise accelerated as soon as sure part-time staff had been granted the appropriate to take part, which definitely helped drive general inventory possession figures greater.

So, too, the rise of extra accessible inventory buying and selling platforms equivalent to Robinhood, which supply the power to purchase fractional shares, making it simpler and cheaper to commerce shares.

The Backside Line

Extra People are investing in shares than at any level since 2007. Lots has occurred since that date, together with one other market crash and recession, an extended bear market, and an unprecedented interval of low borrowing prices adopted by rampant inflation.

However maybe the market’s efficiency is most chargeable for the rise in inventory possession. The S&P 500, which touched a file excessive in February 2025, is now practically 9 instances greater than it was on the depths of the 2008 crash, and a couple of.5 instances greater than it was on the lows reached in the course of the 2020 COVID-19 crash. These type of beneficial properties have a tendency to draw buyers.