Americans' wealth drops $1.3 trillion (CNNMoney.com)

By Tami Luhby, CNNMoney.com senior writer
Last Updated: June 11, 2009: 1:30 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Americans saw $1.3 trillion of wealth vaporize in the first quarter of 2009, as the stock market and home values continued to decline, according to a government report released Thursday.

Household net worth fell to $50.4 trillion, according to the flow of funds report by the Federal Reserve. Americans' stock holdings plunged 5.8% to $5.2 trillion, while their home value dropped 2.4% to $17.9 trillion.

The nation's households have now seen their net worth shrink for seven straight quarters. Family net worth had hit an all-time high of $64.4 trillion in the second quarter of 2007, thanks to the housing bubble and a strong stock market.

The results are not surprising. The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 11.7% in the quarter, while home values fell 14.2% from the prior-year period, according to Zillow.com.

Though Americans are getting poorer, the rate of decline is slowing. Last year, households' net worth dropped by a record $10.9 trillion, or 17.4%. It ended the year at $51.7 trillion. The fourth-quarter loss of $4.9 trillion, or 8.6%, was the largest quarterly plunge since the Fed started keeping records in 1951.
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more: http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/11/news/economy/Americans_wealth_drops/index.htm?cnn=yes

Though Americans are getting poorer, the rate of decline is slowing.

So that means things are better than expected.

Praise THE TARP!

This Recovery is AWESUM! :crazy:

There is another dimension somewhere, constantly warm by an influx of mismatched socks that just had $1.3T dollars in small unmarked bills transported to it.

Don't tell anybody.

and now it would only sell for $ 210 k, where did the $ 40,000 go? It didn't go anywhere. It was what you thought it was worth. Now it's not.

Same with stocks.