What do people actually know about money, investing, and wealth? Well, a recent poll by Lexington Law asked 4,000 Americans four different multiple choice questions with a focus on basic investment knowledge on stocks, bonds, and building a safe portfolio to get a sense of U.S. financial literacy and found that the average score on the test was only 48.8%. The 4 questions were: - What is the safest investment type?
- What happens to bond prices when interest rates rise?
- What is a bull market?
- What happens to your stock if a company goes bankrupt?
#1: Safest Investment Based on the options provided on the multiple choice, the correct answer was Treasury Bonds. Roughly 53% of Americans would get this right, if asked. #2: Bond Prices Only 25% of respondents said that bond prices would decrease if interest rates rise, which is the correct answer. To be fair, this relationship is somewhat counterintuitive. #3: Bull Market With the current bull market becoming the longest in history this month, this terminology has been all over the news. That said, just 53% of respondents understood a bull market to be a period in which stock prices are expected to rise. #4: Bankruptcy If you own a stock and the company goes bankrupt, what happens? Interestingly, people fared best on this question, with 64% realizing that the stock becomes ?virtually worthless?. It's worth noting, however, that a 64% success rate is still the grading equivalent of a ?D?. How did you do on this test ? are you financially literate about investments? The post So You Think You're Financially Literate? Really? Only 48.8% of Investors Answered This 4-Question Quiz Correctly! appeared first on munKNEE.com. |