I’m quite sure this post won’t end up as a “most popular” one, however these facts are quite interesting to me. I recently came across IRA statistics put out by the Investment Company Institute. Granted, the data is from 2014 but it’s still fascinating IRA data.
- There’s 5.4 trillion dollars in IRA’s
- Assets in IRA’s have grown 10% per year
- Nearly 49 million households have a traditional IRA
- That’s about 40% of the population
- An additional 20.3 million own Roth IRA’s
- 46% of IRA’s are invested in mutual funds
- The rest are in brokerage accounts
- The IRA breakdown is 38% in stock funds, 13% in world equity funds, 21% held target date and lifecycle funds, 20% are in bond funds, 9% in money markets
Take a look at the growth of IRA’s over the years:
The advent of the Roth IRA has definitely increased the popularity of individual retirement accounts. Roth IRA’s make planning for retirement increasingly flexible from a tax and investment perspective. As a financial advisor with many many IRA’s under management, I can only hope this trend continues to grow over time.