The Rise of the Investor Generation

15% of U.S. Stock Market Investors Got Their Start in 2020, Schwab Study Shows - Seite 2

Gen I earns about $20,000 less in annual income, at $76,000 per year, and half (51 percent) lives paycheck to paycheck.

Gen I also had some hurdles to overcome in order to get invested, with more than 60 percent saying the pandemic had a financial impact on them:

Generation
Investor (Gen I)

Pre-2020
Investors

Financially impacted by COVID-19 (NET)

62%

52%

Finances were negatively impacted

39%

28%

Experienced a salary cut or reduced hours

31%

27%

Laid off or furloughed

26%

20%

While Gen I was more financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic than those invested before 2020, the group turned its challenges into an opportunity. With found time and unprecedented change, Gen I buckled down and started investing to build an emergency fund (54 percent) and gain an additional source of income (53 percent). And rather than “setting and forgetting,” two in five (41 percent) say they kept better track of their savings and finances, compared to just a third of pre-2020 investors.

But for Gen I, tracking is just the start. They are also hungry for access to investing education and advice:

• 94 percent want access to information and tools to do their own research
• 90 percent want educational materials to improve their investing skills
• 82 percent are interested in access to an investment professional to provide ongoing help and guidance

Focused on saving and long-term goals

Looking ahead, more than half (52 percent) of Gen I members say they will save more once the pandemic subsides, 43 percent say they plan to invest more and 42 percent plan to work on reducing their total debt. When it comes to their investing strategy, Gen I says the biggest surprise during their first year of investing was learning that investing is more about long-term gains then short-term wins, and shifts in their investing approach reflects this is a generation of learners: