Households' Net Worth Drops

U.S. households' net worth had the biggest fall since the financial crisis, sent down primarily by bearish stock market conditions.

Over the third quarter of 2018, net worth fell 3.4 percent, or $3.73 million, to $104.3 trillion, per new Federal Reserve data. CNBC reports that stock market declines were mostly to blame, amid investor concerns that the Fed would continue interest rate hikes despite changing economic conditions. Overall, the shift of household net work by December was the second-highest quarterly dollar drop recorded by the Fed. Real estate value was $29.2 trillion, and financial assets were more than $85 trillion by year's end.

Household net worth has been rising strongly since the crisis and is up 73 percent since 2009. After suffering their worst Christmas Eve in history, stocks staged a turnaround and ultimately saw their best two-month start to a year since at least 1991. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is off about 1.6 percent in March though still up more than 9 percent year to date.

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