Facinating how stock ownership has changed over the years

This is one very interesting chart.

Of the $22.8 trillion in stock outstanding (not including US ownership of foreign stock and stock owned by "pass-through entities" such as exchange-traded funds), retirement accounts owned roughly 37%, the most of any type of holder.

One this that has been a night-and-day change is taxable investment accounts aka brokerage accounts

Rosenthal and Austin's main focus was the precipitous decline of taxable investment accounts. In 50 years, the amount of stock owned by individual investors and funds outside retirement and nontaxable accounts such as 529 college-savings plans has dropped off a cliff — to about 25% in 2015 from over 80% in 1965.

I think this reflects some of the apprehension of owning stocks directly. It is much easier to buy a mutual fund or an S&P500 Index Fund then it is picking ones own stocks. This would be bad news for ETrade and other brokers. Luckily they are more diversified and provide different kinds of services all at once.