You can breathe easy: Boomers are not going to sink the stock market. At least that's what a July report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) says.
There had been some speculation, or perhaps you could call it fear mongering, that as the 76 million baby boomers set to retire over the next 20 years sold off their financial assets to fund retirement, the stock and bond markets would fall off a cliff. But the GAO report found that, actually, most of the boomers have few assets to sell. In fact, more than two-thirds of the approximate $7.6 trillion in assets held by baby boomers are owned by just 10 percent of boomers. And those retirees will have little reason to sell off their assets since they will most likely be able to live on the income received from their investments, rather than the profits from selling them off, the GAO says.
As for baby boomer retirees that are likely to spend down their assets, well, this group can make claim to just 32 percent of total boomer assets. And one-third of this group does not own any stocks, bonds, mutual funds or retirement accounts.