Americans who have bolted from equity funds out of lingering fear of the financial crisis, have missed out on almost $200 billion of stock gains, according to Bloomberg.

The newswire notes that assets in equity mutual, exchange-traded and closed-end funds increased about 85 percent to $5.6 trillion since the bull market began in March 2009. This has trailed the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index’s 94 percent advance, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and Morningstar Inc.

The proportion of retirement funds in stocks fell about 0.5 percentage point, compared with an average rise of 8.2 percentage points in rallies since 1990.

Moreover, individuals are selling into the rally, cutting the proportion of assets in stocks to 72 percent from 72.5 percent in 2009, according to 401(k) and IRA mutual fund data from the Washington-based Investment Company Institute compiled by Bloomberg. The data is for all equities, bonds and hybrid funds, and excludes money markets.

In fact, investors are lowering the proportion of stocks they own in retirement funds during a bull market for the first time in 20 years, according to Bloomberg.

Read more on the trend in Bloomberg.  

Edited by: Tommy Fernandez


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