Financial assets of households around the globe fell by 0.1 percent and stagnated at a total of 172.5 trillion euros (190.5 trillion U.S. dollars) in the previous year, according to Allianz.
The escalating trade conflict, Britain's ongoing withdrawal from the European Union, increasing geopolitical tensions, as well as the tightening of monetary conditions and the (announced) normalization of monetary policy would have impacted assets in the previous year, Allianz stated.
Stock markets had reacted "accordingly," as share prices declined globally by 12 percent in 2018, according to the report.
Despite a decline in financial assets, fresh savings "set a new record," increasing by 22 percent to more than 2,700 billion euros, the report said.
This development was driven mainly by U.S. households, which were able to increase their savings by 46 percent thanks to the U.S. tax reform in 2018. Two-thirds of all savings from industrialized countries originated in the U.S in the previous year.
Swiss households had the highest share of gross assets per capita once again with 266,318 euros in 2018, according to Allianz's calculations, followed by the Americans with 227,364 euros and the Danes with 156,317 euros.
Allianz noted that the financial assets in industrial and emerging countries declined simultaneously for the first time in history, which had not even happened during the "height of the financial crisis" in 2008.
This would be a "remarkable reversal in the trend" since the growth of financial assets in poorer countries has surpassed that of richer countries by more than 11 percentage points on average over the last two decades, according to Allianz.
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