A new Hearts & Wallets report shows that U.S. households have reached a 15-year high in awareness of investment products, driven by rapid growth in online brokerage usage and increased exposure to emerging strategies such as cryptocurrency, options trading, and margin loans. According to InvestmentNews, the firm's latest analysis draws from its Investor Quantitative database, which includes more than 135 million data points from 5,981 households.
Household awareness of investment vehicles has climbed from 45 percent in 2013 to 85 percent in 2025. Online brokerage penetration now reaches 60 percent of U.S. households. InvestmentNews reports that this is roughly 75 million and more than half of those investors hold less than $100,000 in investable assets.
The report highlights a notable shift in investor behavior. One in five households traded options this year, 6 percent used margin loans on taxable brokerage accounts, and more than 40 percent of younger investors reported exposure to cryptocurrency.
According to InvestmentNews, the findings also detail competitive positioning for major asset managers. Households under age 55 with $500,000 to $3 million in investable assets report definite ownership of products from an average of 6.4 asset managers. One-third of households with more than $3 million report owning products from at least four. Fidelity Investments leads with penetration of approximately 14 percent of households, followed by Vanguard at 11 percent and BlackRock/iShares at 8 percent. Schwab, Capital Group, JPMorgan, Invesco, Morgan Stanley, T. Rowe Price, and American Century round out the top ten.
The data shows that households increasingly focus on the products they own rather than asset allocation, a reversal of trends seen over the past decade. While long-term mutual funds remain dominant at $19.9 trillion and individual stocks total $17.8 trillion in household assets, ETFs—now at $7.2 trillion—continue to grow quickly, especially among higher-asset investors, as reported by InvestmentNews.
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