The Rise of the Next-Gen, Everyday Investor

Whisper it quietly but a new generation of everyday investors is emerging. Taking advantage of innovations that allow anyone to invest for as little as a few euros at the click of a button, they’re beginning to save for their futures through financial markets.

What’s made this possible? Quite simply, investing is getting easier. Traditionally, investing was the preserve of the wealthy, but today low-cost online brokers, automated neobank accounts and exchange-traded funds (EFTs) are opening a world of possibilities. Then, of course, there’s the wonder of crypto currency investing.

As young people get wealthier and more financially literate, there’s a growing movement of next-gen, everyday investors. They’re speculating to accumulate – after all an investment in global equities has returned an average of 10% each year for the last 10 years, using the VanEck World Equal Weight Screened UCITS ETF as a proxy.¹ It is important to note though that past performance is not a reliable indicator for the future. Meanwhile, the rate on bank deposits was close to zero for some of these years in many countries.

Of course, there are no guarantees that equities will provide this kind of return in future. But as many of the next generation of investors are young, they have the time to ride out the shorter-term corrections in markets that happen now and again.

58% of Americans have stock accounts

Let’s look at a few facts. In the United States, the Federal Reserve estimated that 58% of the country’s 335 million people owned publicly traded stock in 2022 – far higher than the 49% doing so 10 years earlier in 2013. The central bank put this extraordinary growth down to the democratization of investing through low-cost brokerage accounts, reduced trading fees and simplified access to financial markets.²

Women are in the vanguard of the next-gen investment movement. A survey conducted last year found that 7 in 10 US women (71%) own investments. This was 18% higher than the survey result for 2023.³

In Europe, investing also appears on the rise, although it’s still far short of the US. Take the Netherlands. A quarter (26%) of households had investments in stocks, funds or other vehicles in 2024, according to the country’s AFM financial regulator. That’s up from a fifth (22%) in 2022.

The non-investing investor

Encouraging as these numbers are, many people still do not invest, even though there are more reasons than ever to invest. Think not just of your immediate savings but your long-term financial security – neither employers nor the state pay the generous pensions they once did.

Looking once more to the Netherlands, it seems many don’t invest simply because they don’t know how to or don’t understand and overestimate the risks. When Dufas, the Dutch Fund and Asset Management Association, asked 1,589 people in September 2024 why they didn’t invest, the results suggested mainly a lack of knowledge. Almost half (47%) said they didn’t know how to, with almost as many (43%) thinking investing too risky. That’s despite the fact that there are many low-risk options such as government bonds. Additionally, even investing in equities can be less risky than commonly perceived when diversified across a broad range of sectors, regions, and companies, as this reduces the impact of individual stock volatility.

ETFs and democratisation

At VanEck, we are passionate about educating these non-investing investors—whether through this column, our Academy website pages or the talks we give in schools and at investors events. We are also in the vanguard of democratising investing and proud of it. We offer a broad range of ETFs that have low fees and are easy to trade.

My hope is that the democratisation of investing will continue and intensify. In the Netherlands, our VanEck Direct app enables people to automate investing, making it even easier. It would be good if in five years’ time the movement of the next-gen, everyday investor has gained momentum, with still more people investing.