One doesn't have to look very far back in history to know that we've come through substantial market volatility. Although we've had an enjoyed one of the longest runs of equity bull market experience in history, we still have had equity market volatility over recent horizons. And over and across the great financial crisis, and the market volatility associated with it during and after. It turns out that this affects investors, and is a critical piece of what we might think about in the fintech space, both are with respect to clients like the millennial generation. But also across the entire range of demographics. Part of what we know has been informed by the concept of the Depression Baby Affect. Sociologists know this effect as being the behavioral characteristics and actions taken or not taken by those who lived through The Great Depression in the United States in the first part of the last century. Or, in fact, as it turns out, the behaviors of their progeny. They're often reported as being less tolerant of risk, and being people who save more. Some sociologists tell us that they're actually less garrulous, and perhaps at the margin might be more introverted than previous generations. Researchers have found that this characteristic is not one only of deep market volatility or market crashes, or economic depressions. But may in fact, be a characteristic simply of traditional levels of volatility as well as the extremes. A couple years ago, Malmendier and Nagel published an article called Depression Babies, Do Macroeconomic Experiences Affect Risk Taking? In which they examined the experiences of investors across large periods of time, studying the market experiences, volatility of markets, and then their subsequent willingness to take risks. What they found was that investor market experience clearly impacts risk aversion, risk capacity, and the actual subsequent taking of risk in financial markets. They found that investors who have earned low stock market returns in the past are less likely to take financial risk. Are less likely to participate in the stock market when they are taking risks, and investing less more generally, given that they have had recent low stock market returns. It turns out that more recent experiences have stronger effects on investors' risk appetites. And that especially when these risk experiences happen earlier in life, they can have longer lasting effects. What they found was that when they compared differences, in previous stock market returns, to future stock market participation, a positive relationship resulted. Of course life time effects or life cycle effects have to be handled. In other words, traditional financial planning thinking suggests that when investors are older, they can, should and do take lower levels of risk. In part, because they have a shorter horizon in which to make up any shortfalls or losses, compared to when they're younger. When they have a longer horizon, they're more apt or able to bear risk. So what Malmendier and Nagel cleverly did was to integrate out the old versus young effect. What we find when we look at their results in the graph in front of you, is a positive and strongly statistically significant relationship comparing previous market experience, market results to future stock market participation. In other words, when stock market returns were low in the past, future stock market participation was low. When market returns were high in the past, future market participation was high. In other words, people's ability to take risk was not just about the Great Depression. It was about market experiences and the continuum of market experiences. Well, we find that that's also true construed across cohorts. We find that this sensitivity to risk aversion and how it affects millennials more strongly is born out by current data, and data in particular, following behavior through the financial crisis. In the graph in front of you provided by the Investment Company Institute's annual profile of mutual fund shareholders, coupled together by us going back to 1998, through the periods ending in 2018, we see that well as financial planning tenants would tell us, those who are older are less likely to take risk. The question specifically asked whether you are willing to take above average or substantial risk in your investment portfolio? So the data from 1998, say that 16% of those who are 65 or older would be willing to take above average or substantial risk, corresponding to the traditional logic. When you're older, you're less likely and you're less able to handle risk, given your life expectancies. If you go the the 50 to 64 crowd, well, 35% were interested or willing to take above average or substantial risk. If you go to the 35 to 49 crowd, it goes up to 39%. If you go down to the younger than 35, you're all the way up to 50%, more than 50%, 52%. Those younger than 35 are willing to take above average or substantial risk in your portfolio, fine. However, what you see, when you look at volatility across the financial crisis. So for example, if you could look at 2004, but then especially in 2009, 11, 15 and 17, the younger generations, the millennial segment, rapidly fell in their willingness to take risk in their portfolios. Between 98 in 2011, the number went from 52% to 31%. Compare that to the 65 or older cog, for example, that went from 16%, in fact, in 2011 to 18%, their interest and willingness to take risk went up. For the 50 to 64, 98 to 2011, it went from 35 to 26. For the 35 to 49, it went from 39 in 2018, to 38 in 2011. The Malmendier and Nagel results were born out. The younger cohorts had a greater affect in their experiences facing market volatility than older cohorts. And in fact, they have still not recovered back to the 1998 levels. It turns out, one of the most important target markets of FinTech activities is not only risk averse today, compared to historical levels, they're most sensitive to risk,. And as Malmendier and Nagel remind us, it could take decades for them to move back into risk. That holds open the promise for robo advisory. Representing both a tailwind, but also a potential headwind to the actual activity of risk taking and financial advising.
