The man ahead of me at the bank last week was there to add his daughter to an account.

He had a folder, his reading glasses, and the patience of someone who has filled out forms for fifty years. The teller asked if it was a joint account. He said no. It was the plan for after.

I thought about him when the Fed’s newest numbers came out.

Households headed by someone 70 or older now hold 40.5% of all the stock American households own. That comes to about $26.2 trillion.

Stock here means shares of companies, owned directly or through mutual funds and retirement accounts.

Early this year that group passed the 55-to-69 crowd for the first time in Fed records that go back to 1989. It still leads, 40.5% to 39.3%.

So if you are past 70, your age group is now the largest owner in the market. If you are a few years behind, you are next in line.

The climb took a generation. It ran on birthdays. Three readings from the same Fed table show the pace.

 

Two forces push that line up. People live longer, so the shares stay in the same hands longer. And each year another wave of boomers crosses 70 with its retirement accounts.

The youngest boomers turn 70 in 2034. The arrivals keep coming until then.

At the other end of the table, households under 40 hold 5.7%.

Every company that goes public now is sold into that shape. SpaceX raised a record $75 billion in its June debut, the largest stock offering ever. Its largest group of owners is past 70.

Where the cohort’s money sits this quarter, and where the stock goes at the end of the line.

That leaves an odd shape. Its largest owners have the shortest runway and the most paperwork ahead.

The next big move for that money is an inheritance. Heirs generally take inherited shares at their value on the date of death. The gain built up over a lifetime goes untaxed. All of it.

Tax people call this the step-up in basis. It is a big reason the oldest owners hold on to the very end.

There is a soft spot in the handoff, and it belongs to whoever runs the account today. Heirs do not have to keep the adviser, the bank, or the plan that came with it. Plenty of them move the money.

And a rule written by Congress can be rewritten by Congress. The step-up has drawn fire in Washington before.

The arithmetic

Federal Reserve Board, Distributional Financial Accounts, shares and levels by age of household reference person, corporate equities and mutual fund shares, data through 2026:Q2 (downloaded October 2026): households 70 and older 40.5% in 2026:Q2, about $26.2 trillion; ages 55 to 69 39.3%; under 40 5.7%; 70 and older 22.6% in 1989:Q3 and 29.2% in 2020:Q1. 2026:Q1 (39.8% against 39.7%) is the first quarter since the series begins in 1989 in which households 70 and older held the larger share. The youngest boomers were born in 1964 and turn 70 in 2034. Step-up in basis: Internal Revenue Code section 1014. SpaceX raised $75 billion in its June 2026 IPO, the largest in history, per Bloomberg and Axios reporting. The reading that the largest owner group a new listing sells into is past 70 follows from the Fed shares above and is Boomers Trade’s own.

 

The Fed updates this table every quarter. Next time it lands, look for the 70-plus line first. If it climbs again, the handoff just got bigger. And the man at the bank will have company in that line.

Andrew

Boomers Trade is written by someone getting older right alongside you, and watching who profits from it.