Global wealth rose 7.9% to US $431 trillion last year.
This is how much everyone owns collectively, $431,000,000,000,000.
The segment that generated the most growth was real assets such as real estate.
Society is getting richer as a whole
The financial assets owned by everyone in the world increased by 9.3% last year to a record $250 trillion.
This is equivalent to US $32,000 of investments for every individual.
Okay so what does this mean? Here are some take-aways from the report by Boston Consulting Group.
- Global wealth grew by nearly 8% last year. This means anyone who’s net worth didn’t grow by at least 8% in 2020 is unfortunately falling behind.
- Investments in capital markets rose 11.5% globally in 2020. It’s not necessarily a good idea to benchmark your portfolio’s returns with an index. But this 11.5% growth gives you a good idea of what the rest of the world has made in terms of investment returns last year.
- As I’ve been warning for the past 2 years, inflation is coming, and you have to invest in hard assets such as commodities and real estate. And I don’t think this boom cycle is over yet.
- We do not live on an isolated island. There’s a common perception that Canada has expensive housing. The fact of the matter is that real estate has been hot around the world during the pandemic. This isn’t a one country phenomenon.
- If you have more than $1 million USD, you are part of the top 0.3% wealthiest people in the world. There are only about 20.8 million people as rich or richer than you.
- If you have over $5 million USD, you are among the top 0.025%. Only 2 million people in the world enjoy this level of wealth.
- I expect the global net worth to reach $1 quintillion in the year 2033.
Exposure to the world
Diversifying our assets around the world can reduce risk without hurting expected returns. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad we have a resource based economy which has been a blessing over the last 2 years as lumber, land, oil and other commodities increased in value. 🙂 That’s why the Canadian stock market index is beating the S&P 500 in the U.S. this year. But Canada only makes up about 3% of global GDP.
This is why it’s sensible to invest globally.
Luckily there are all-in-one ETF investment solutions to help with that.
The 2 most common ETFs that are easy to suggest to beginner investors are the iShares Core Equity ETF Portfolio (XEQT) and the Vanguard All-Equity ETF Portfolio (VEQT)
If you’re wondering what the specific differences are between the two I’ve recently uploaded a video comparing the two funds. You can watch it here in case you missed it, or see below.
XEQT is exposed to more technology stocks and has a larger global allocation focusing less on Canada. And VEQT has more exposure to the financial sector and emerging markets. I don’t think you can go wrong with either one. 🙂
Both these funds are a great place to start your investing journey. And they will certainly take advantage of the growth in global wealth over time. But that doesn’t mean they’re for everyone. Ultimately the goal is to continue learning and figure out an optimal strategy that best suit your investor profile over time.
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Random Useless Fact:
It would be interesting to see at what percentage the global debt grew last year.
Municipal, state/prov, federal. I won’t ask about personal debt and corporate debt.
If true, isn’t it interesting that Mr. McAffee died broke although he was property rich. At least that is what they are saying.
At any rate the old axiom still seems to hold true in that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. There are always exceptions to the rule either way, up or down. I might posit that the mid to upper rich are getting richer while those under them are either trying to find the funds for an extra shovel to shovel them selves out of the hole or wondering if they will have enough dinaro to keep up the lifestyle without having to cut back. Gotta put fuel in that yacht after all.
I just keep track of what I spend and what I have in the bank. They have to jive for me to feel happy. Haven’t had to cut back so far. CZV-19 did help I must admit. No where to spend the money
RICARDO
Yes, the death surrounding McAfee is a bit strange. With his kind of wealth he could probably get a new identity and live the rest of his life in peace somewhere. I just found out he tried to run for president a couple of times in the US, but didn’t get elected lol.
I think government debt shot up in pretty much all countries. It used to be that when the government wanted to spend more money they raise taxes. Now they’ve found a way to grow public spending without higher taxation by just using debt. This basically takes the purchasing power away from savers. I’m not sure how all this will end.
Its hard to believe only 20M people in the whole planet have more than 1M USD. Can you provide the source of this data? Looking here for example says its over 50M people:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/203930/global-wealth-distribution-by-net-worth/
The source is from the world wealth report I mentioned in the post. Sorry, I had the wrong link by mistake before and fixed it now. The figure with the blue triangle shows the number of individuals that have over a certain amount. I added them all together to get 20.8 million individuals.
I forgot to mention that the numbers are based on investable assets, which excludes primary residence, collectibles, consumables and consumer durables.
Do you know if the other data source from statista.com is based on total net worth or also investable assets?
But I agree with you, even when looking only at financial assets, I expect there to be a lot more than 20.8 million people in that category. 🙂
I wouldn’t be surprised if the reported figures are lower than in reality because these are often from self reported surveys, and millionaires can under report. #stealthwealth
Wow, I had no clue that if you had a million dollars, you are that much higher than the rest of the world. In the United States, it’s quite common to see millionaires, with a 6.6% millionaire rate.
Just goes to show… How blessed we can be even if we’re only earning something like $30k per year when compared to the rest of the world.
It is certainly a great privilege to be living in the western world. 🙂
Millionaires do seem to be pretty common. I read a statistic once that only 1% of men in the United States have visible abs. So it’s quite a bit harder to get a six pack than to become a millionaire, lol.