As we move past the Thanksgiving turkey and into the middle of the Black Friday scrum over, yes, 29-cent washcloths, there’s one group that can look forward to a cheery holiday season.
The affluent, or those with $500,000 of investible assets, are feeling good about life, based on four financial factors as measured by Spectrem Group. Readings on the economy, household assets, household income and company health all jumped in November, and the overall index is around its highest levels of the year.
Among the four components, the index on household assets is at its highest since July 2007 – helped, no doubt, by a stock market that is looking like the Energizer bunny, even if blue-chips pulled back on Friday.
The millionaires, perhaps not surprisingly, are more upbeat than the non-millionaire affluent. The latter still show a lack of confidence in the economy, though just barely. That reading leaped 21.77 points in November to a minus-0.96. The index of economic confidence among those with $1 million or more of investible assets jumped 15.7 points to 20.36 points.