Ultra-Wealthy's Financial Forecast

By Dian Vujovich

Everybody has a crystal ball when it comes to predicting the future of our suffering economy. And from what I can see, the stock peddlers are far more optimistic about it than the ultra-wealthy.

At The Luxury Marketing Council of Florida’s meeting Feb. 4th at the Omphoy Ocean Resort in South Palm Beach, Ron Kurtz, president of The American Affluence Research Center (AARC), presented a program based on data collected from the 2009 Affluent Market Tracking Study.

Of the 684 men and women in the study, 55 percent were men and 45 percent women. The average age of this golden group was 56, average annual income $300,000, and average net worth, $3.1 million.

As you might expect, these kids expect to spend more this year than they did last year, but not necessarily heaps more. They also plan on savings more: On average, the affluent interviewed expect to save over 9 percent of their income. That’s much higher than the average Joe or Jill does and clearly the underlying reason behind why some people are in the have’s category while others fall under the have-not’s heading.

While we all know that having money doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve got the brains to go along with it, the interviewed were basically conservative in their outlook regarding the economy and when they expect it to recover. In fact, they aren’t expecting a turnaround until next year. Pretty interesting since this survey was conducted in September of 2009.

Here’s what they were thinking way back in 2009:The group expect the recession to end in the first quarter of 2011; unemployment to decline to 8 percent late in the second quarter of 2011; and the DJIA to hit 11,500 in the third quarter of 2011.

They also expect the value of their homes will have increased by 20 percent by first quarter of 2012.

Nothing quick about how they think.