That article distorts the picture. Gallup [0] has a nice survey that shows there was a big drop after the 2008 financial crises. I know people (including severa

That article distorts the picture. Gallup [0] has a nice survey that shows there was a big drop after the 2008 financial crises. I know people (including several millionaires) who sold out of all their stocks, and even today, won't touch the market - many of them compare it to Vegas and use the word "gambling" a lot. Second, there are less than half of the number of public companies as there were 20 years ago [1]. So the investors are chasing a small group with a larger market capitalization. That's due to many reasons, but regulation is a big one (sarbanes-oxley, dodd-frank, etc). Many people don't have the risk tolerance to be in the market, let alone own a single stock. What happens if that stock were Enron or Worldcom? That's a lot of risk. [0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/211052/stock-ownership-down-among-older-higher-income.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/211052/stock-ownership-down-amo... [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-04-09/where-have-all-the-u-s-public-companies-gone https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-04-09/where-hav...