U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the visit to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library for its dedication, in Medora, North Dakota, U.S., July 1, 2026.
Evan Vucci | Reuters
President Donald Trump‘s crypto-related income and holdings in companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia netted him many millions, according to his annual financial disclosure report.
“You know why I’m profiting? Because the stock market’s going up, everybody’s profiting,” Trump said to reporters Wednesday.
To be sure, in the first six months of the year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 8.9%, marking its best first-half performance since 2021. The S&P 500 rose 9.6%, and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 12.8%. The small-cap Russell 2000 surged nearly 22%, notching its best first-half performance since 1991.
But not everybody shares in the market’s upside.
Stock wealth has largely accrued to the richest U.S. households, research shows.
According to a Gallup Poll often cited by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, 38% of American households have no exposure to equities at all.
Of those who do invest, stock ownership is heavily concentrated among the nation’s highest earners.
A growing wealth gap
As of the first quarter of 2026, the top 1% owned half of corporate equities and mutual fund shares, or about $27.64 trillion, according to the most recent Federal Reserve data, while the top 10% of Americans hold more than 87%.
Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of households collectively held just 1% — or $590 billion — of that stock and mutual fund wealth.
“Half of Americans effectively own no stocks,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s. And “to be in the top 1%, you need to make over $750,000 annually.”
Those dynamics, along with the recent bull market, have exacerbated the wealth gap, he said.
“The surging stock market is enormously beneficial to the finances of the well to do, but means little for most Americans,” said Zandi.
Bessent and other advocates of soon-to-launch Trump Accounts say investing in U.S. stocks can help narrow the gap by creating more wealth-building opportunities for children across all income levels.
“We need to get capital into the pockets of every child born so that they can compound in the upside of SpaceX, in Alphabet, in all of our great companies, like everybody else in the market,” Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner, who helped spearhead the investing accounts, said during a June 12 appearance on CNBC’s “Halftime Report.”
According to a new analysis by consulting firm McKinsey, Trump Accounts could potentially generate $80 billion to more than $900 billion in long-term asset accumulation for lower-wealth households over the next decade. However, participation, contribution patterns and sustained engagement are key factors in those outcomes.
