Youngest Baby Boomers Are Also More Sophisticated

Here come the Barely Boomers. That’s the sobriquet for the youngest batch of baby boomers in a new report from the Spectrem Group, which notes that those between the ages of 40 and 45 tend to have more sophisticated needs than older boomer segments because more of them hold hedge funds, private equity, and futures investments.

The Spectrem Perspectives report, The Barely Boomers: How They Will Impact the Future of Financial Services, says that nearly one-third of the barely boomers also hold stock options and 30% of them own restricted stock, which is higher than any other boomer segment. Also, nearly 31% of barely boomers’ portfolios are invested in real estate.

The report says that only those advisors with a “broad skill set” will have success in serving these affluent barely boomers. Spectrem says there are 700,000 affluent barely boomers out there, each having more than $500,000 in investable assets. Of this group, Spectrem says 88% of them want to build their wealth rather than preserve it, and 85% “have set aside a portion of their assets for more speculative or higher risk investments.”