The share of household financial assets held in equities — positioning.
No cheap period appears in this window — the last one ended Jul 1985. The full chart shows all periods since 1962.
Hover shows the month’s as-of percentile. Its history is the Fed's revised accounts: first prints exist only from 2019, and three of its expensive periods (1967, 2007 and 2019) appear only on data revised since. Those periods are marked ‡ in the register. A period moves whenever the Fed revises the values under it.
Periods of at least two consecutive quarters at or above the 95th percentile of this measure's own history up to that quarter; a single quarter below ends a period.
This lens has 24 periods in its whole record. That is too few to say whether where it sits has meant anything for what followed, at any horizon — the columns below are history, not a finding.
| period | qtr at this level | S&P during | worst decline after (36m) | S&P +1y from the start | +3y |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2022 → open | 15 | +103.3% to date | open | +32.3% | +74.6% |
| Jul 2020 → Apr 2022 | 8 | +6.9% | −3.1% | +28.3% | +32.7% |
| Jan 2019 → Oct 2019 ‡ | 4 | −6.9% | +4.3% | +9.5% | +41.7% |
| Apr 2017 → Jul 2018 | 6 | +5.4% | +1.7% | +18.6% | +42.9% |
| Jan 2007 → Apr 2007 ‡ | 2 | −0.7% | −47.5% | −9.7% | −23.3% |
| Apr 1997 → Oct 2000 | 15 | +32.5% | −27.3% | +10.6% | +63.0% |
| Apr 1968 → Jan 1969 | 4 | +0.1% | −21.0% | −3.8% | +8.6% |
| Jul 1967 → Oct 1967 ‡ | 2 | −5.8% | −8.7% | +15.2% | +4.5% |
| Jul 1965 → Jan 1966 | 3 | −4.7% | −9.3% | −8.3% | +27.7% |
| Apr 1964 → Jan 1965 | 4 | +4.2% | −5.4% | +10.4% | +26.2% |
| Apr 1963 → Jul 1963 | 2 | +2.6% | +3.3% | +18.0% | +17.0% |
‡ Appears only on the Fed's accounts as revised since; on its first prints this was not an expensive period.
median during +1.4% (N=10) · median worst after −7.0% (N=10) · median +1y +10.5% (N=10) · median +3y +26.9% (N=10) — medians over completed periods only. Each window opens the month the period's first reading was published — the Fed's Z.1 release, about seventy days after the quarter — and "during" runs to the month its last reading was published.
Periods of at least two consecutive quarters in the bottom fifth of this measure's own history up to that quarter; a single quarter above ends a period.
No cheap period in four decades: under an expanding window, this measure's bottom fifth is anchored by the low-allocation years from the mid-1970s to about 1990, and has been structurally out of reach since. The absence is information about the lens, not the market — its documented value lies on the expensive side, where published research has tied high allocations to weak ten-year returns. The panel carries the cheap side: see the Buffett indicator's 2008–09 period, and the Capitulation Monitor for short-horizon extremes.
| period | qtr at this level | S&P during | worst decline after (36m) | S&P +1y from the start | +3y |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 1973 → Jul 1985 | 48 | +268.9% | +0.8% | −10.0% | +17.0% |
median during +268.9% (N=1) · median worst after +0.8% (N=1) · median +1y −10.0% (N=1) · median +3y +17.0% (N=1) — medians over completed periods only. Each window opens the month the period's first reading was published — the Fed's Z.1 release, about seventy days after the quarter — and "during" runs to the month its last reading was published.
Paths are S&P total return · Shiller monthly convention (dividends reinvested monthly). The chart above remains the price tape. "Worst after" is the deepest monthly total-return level in the 36 months after each period — month-end grain, no intra-month lows. Construction and fidelity pins: "The total-return basis" on the Confluence methodology. Historical record, not a forecast. How it's measured →