Young people looking to spend Covid stimulus checks on stocks: Survey

A survey from Deutsche Bank has given an insight into how much cash from U.S. stimulus checks might find its way into the stock market. CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" crew discusses. For access to live and exclusive video from CNBC subscribe to CNBC PRO: https://cnb.cx/2NGeIvi

A survey from Deutsche Bank has given an insight into how much cash from U.S. stimulus checks might find its way into the stock market.

Responses to the survey of 430 retail investors showed that half of 25- to 34-year-olds plan to spend 50% of their stimulus payments on stocks, leading the German investment bank to state that “a large amount of the upcoming U.S. stimulus checks will probably find their way into equities.”

Meanwhile, 18- to 24-year-olds involved in the survey planned to use 40% of any stimulus checks on stocks, and 35- to 54-year-olds surveyed planned to use 37% of their checks on equity market investment. The over-55s surveyed said they’d put only 16% into stocks.

The online survey, led by Deutsche strategist Parag Thatte and published late last month, found that respondents plan to put a large chunk (37%) of any forthcoming stimulus directly into stocks, which could represent a sizable inflow into the market of $170 billion.

The overall sample had nearly equal representation of those under 34 (41%) and 34-54 (37%) and a somewhat smaller share of those over 55 years of age, Deutsche Bank noted. In terms of income distribution, the biggest group was in the $50,000 to $100,000 range (34%), which aligns with the U.S. median income of around $69,000. Most respondents were either employed full time (59%) or retired (12%).

Previous payments

The survey found that previous stimulus payments, handed out in recent months in a bid to jump-start the U.S. economy in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, “were widely reported as being used for investing in stocks.”

A vast majority (72%) of the respondents reported getting a stimulus check and more than half (53%) said they invested some of the stimulus money in the stock market. Younger people were much more likely to have invested in stocks using the payments, the research said.

While the analysts noted that these checks were still a small proportion of the overall funds invested in the market, they predicted a change with the next batch of payments. “Going forward however, survey respondents plan to put a large chunk (37%) of any forthcoming stimulus checks directly into equities, which could represent a sizable inflow,” the bank said.

‘Aggressive cohort’

New retail investors are seen as a key driver of a rally in the U.S. stock market over the past year, described by strategists as the 2020 “retail wave.” The survey found that more than half of all respondents raised their investments in stocks over the past year, with just under half (45%) investing for the very first time.

“Behind the recent surge in retail investing is a younger, often new-to-investing, and aggressive cohort not afraid to employ leverage,” Deutsche Bank strategists Jim Reid and research associate Raj Bhattacharyya said in a report last week that built upon the survey’s results.

“Given stimulus checks are currently penciled in at circa $405 billion in Biden’s plan (before Senate revisions), that gives us a maximum of around $150 billion that could go into U.S. equities based on our survey,” although they noted that only a small proportion of stimulus check recipients have trading accounts.

“If we estimate this at around 20% (based on some historical assumptions), that would still provide around circa $30 billion of firepower — and that’s before we talk about any possible boosts to 401k plans outside of trading accounts.”

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