Personal Wealth Management / Market Analysis
A Balance Sheet to Die For
Have a look at the balance sheet below.
Have a look at the balance sheet below. Looks pretty good, right? Debt is less than 20% of total assets, and liquid assets are over 60% of total assets. This is a balance sheet most corporations would die for—a tremendously healthy capital structure that's clearly generated substantial assets over time while maintaining a near optimal, if not under-leveraged, amount of debt. (See our past commentary, "Are You Optimal?") Certainly, if you were an investor and saw a balance sheet like this, you'd be impressed, right? This balance sheet tells a story of an entity with big potential for further investment and growth with excess capital to deploy and could easily service more debt.
This not a company's balance sheet. This is the balance sheet of the US Consumer. With over $67 trillion in assets compared to just $13 trillion in debt, the US consumer has a net worth of over $54 trillion and growing.
If this is "broke," then we have no idea what it means to be rich.
If you would like to contact the editors responsible for this article, please message MarketMinder directly.
*The content contained in this article represents only the opinions and viewpoints of the Fisher Investments editorial staff.
Get a weekly roundup of our market insights.
Sign up for our weekly e-mail newsletter.
See Our Investment Guides
The world of investing can seem like a giant maze. Fisher Investments has developed several informational and educational guides tackling a variety of investing topics.