The US wealthy are richer than ever helped by an “energy renaissance” that has seen more Americans become high net worth individuals (HNWIs).
The population of US wealthy jumped 17% to 4 million and their investable wealth by 18% to reach $13.9 trillion.
Growth rates of both those who are considered as HNWIs and the overall HNWI level of wealth in the US exceed the global averages of 15% and 14%, respectively, according to the US Wealth Report 2014 from Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management.
Over the last five years, some of the strongest growth in wealth occurred in the energy and technology-centric cities of Dallas, Houston and San Jose, indicating that a broader mix of geographies and industries is driving wealth creation in the US.
Steady GDP growth and strong equity market performance are also factors.
New York has the largest amount of HNWIs. There are 894,000 of them, and their wealth amounts to $3.2 trillion.
In the wealth management industry, there are also signs of greater trust of advisers by their clients. Trust levels have surged by double-digit rates between early 2013 and early 2014 and this is supporting greater risk-taking, with allocations to alternative investments up by four percentage points to 13% of portfolios, while equity allocations remained the highest across the globe at one-third of portfolios.
However, despite increased trust in wealth managers, client assessment of wealth manager performance dropped by six percentage points to 73%, though remains much higher than the rest of the world average of 59%.
©2014 funds europe
