Goldman Sachs: U.S. Stocks Have Outperformed Real Estate for the First Time Since World War II

For the first time since World War II, the share of U.S. households’ investments in stocks has exceeded the share of investments in real estate within their net financial assets, according to a Goldman Sachs note. The investment bank emphasized that securities have become the main driver of growth in household wealth and a key factor supporting consumer spending, Reuters reports.

The share of stocks in the assets of U.S. households and the region—which includes Australia and New Zealand—is approaching 50%, surpassing the level seen during the dot-com era, according to Goldman Sachs. The figure has risen thanks to steady stock market growth since the global financial crisis, particularly over the past three to four years, with technology stocks accounting for an increasingly large share of investments, the investment bank noted.

Households in the United States, Australia, and Sweden, while investors in Europe and Japan remain relatively underinvested in the stock market and hold the bulk of their capital in cash, Goldman noted. It forecasts that regulatory changes in Europe, including pension system reforms in the Netherlands and Germany, may eventually prompt pension funds and insurance companies to increase their equity holdings.

Goldman Sachs also warned that a high proportion of stocks makes households more vulnerable to a sharp market correction, especially amid overvalued markets and high macroeconomic uncertainty.

U.S. household investments in private real estate and infrastructure totaled just 11% in 2025, according to the industry publication Crypto Briefing. This figure has risen only slightly compared to previous years, which stands in stark contrast to the aggressive accumulation of real estate that defined American families’ savings model in previous decades, the portal notes.

The Federal Reserve’s aggressive cycle of rate hikes, which began in 2022, has made mortgages expensive and caused transaction volumes to stagnate. According to a Goldman Sachs forecast, the real estate sector could recover if interest rates fall, Crypto Briefing reports.

This year, the major U.S. stock indices rose by about 8%.

The day before, on July 23, the broad-market S&P 500 index fell 1.2%, the Dow Jones blue-chip index lost nearly 1%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell by 2.2% in a single day. This is the largest drop since April 2025, as well as the second-largest decline in market capitalization in recorded history, notes MarketWatch. Market participants were spooked by plans from Alphabet and Tesla to further increase their multibillion-dollar capital expenditures on AI this year.

In premarket trading on July 24, S&P 500 futures rose about 0.2%, while Dow Jones futures rose 0.4%. Nasdaq Composite futures were virtually unchanged.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor