Why is the Fed attacking the stock market? Do they not care about 401ks? What am I missing about stock prices vs bonds except that as interest rates go up people will buy bonds over stocks. But even then stocks are likely a better choice.
It seems that stock market household participation has inched up over the past 4 decades driven by a variety of factors and is likely a (slight) majority participation rate at this point[1][2] although as one might expect heavily skewed towards higher-income households.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/25/more-than-h...
[2] https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2021-03-1...
Even 10% of people can push the inflation.
The uncomfortable answer is (possibly) that a subsection of the elite have all sold mass amounts of stock and bought cryptocurrency...or, at least that's what the optics & legislation seem to indicate.