Investment portfolios are becoming an increasingly important source of spending power for American households, with withdrawals from investment accounts now equivalent to nearly 7% of consumer spending in a large JPMorganChase dataset, according to new research that highlights a changing relationship between financial wealth and everyday household finances.

The JPMorganChase Institute said transfers from investment accounts into checking accounts were equivalent to 6.8% of spending in April 2026, compared with 3.5% in April 2019 and 2.3% in 2015. The measure almost doubled from its pre-pandemic level and rose across income and age groups, although wealthier and older households accounted for the largest shares.

The findings are based on de-identified checking-account data covering more than 20 million Chase customers between 2015 and 2026. Rather than attempting to estimate the conventional economic “wealth effect” solely from changes in asset values and aggregate consumption, the Institute tracked transfers from investment accounts into checking accounts, where the funds become readily available for purchases, bill payments, cash withdrawals and other expenditures.

The distinction is important. JPMorganChase is not claiming that 6.8% of all U.S. personal consumption expenditures measured in national economic accounts can be directly traced to securities sales. Its measure is a cash-flow proxy constructed from observed transfers and checking-account outflows within its customer sample. Researchers net transfers between investment and checking accounts at the individual level and count positive net flows into checking, then compare those flows with total checking-account outflows used as a spending proxy.

Even with that methodological qualification, the trend is substantial. During the February-through-April 2026 period, 8.2% of individuals in the sample were net withdrawers from investment accounts. That compared with 4.0% during the corresponding period of 2019 and 2.4% in 2015. In other words, people were more than twice as likely to be moving net funds from investments into checking as they were before the pandemic and more than three times as likely as they were roughly a decade earlier.

The increases were particularly pronounced among affluent households. For the Institute’s top income segment, the share of individuals making net withdrawals increased from 6.6% in the February-April period of 2015 to 20.3% in the same period of 2026. Among individuals below median income, the comparable proportion rose from 1.1% to 4.1%.

That gap illustrates why the findings are especially relevant to private banks, wealth managers and financial advisors. Households with higher incomes are generally more likely to own sizeable taxable brokerage portfolios and other financial assets that can be converted into liquid cash. As stock-market wealth has expanded, those accounts appear to be functioning more frequently as another component of household cash-flow management rather than simply as long-term stores of wealth.

JPMorganChase said U.S. household stock holdings had risen to record levels and represented nearly one-third of total household assets by the first quarter of 2026, roughly twice their share at the beginning of the 2010s. That expansion means movements in asset prices and decisions about portfolio withdrawals potentially have greater consequences for consumption than they did when market wealth represented a smaller proportion of household balance sheets.

Age magnifies the pattern. Among people aged 65 and older in the top income group, 37.3% were making net investment withdrawals in 2025, up from 24.5% in 2019. Those transfers were equivalent to 14.9% of the group’s spending, compared with 8.0% six years earlier.

The result is consistent with traditional lifecycle financial theory: households generally accumulate financial assets during their working years and gradually spend those assets during retirement. The shift from defined-benefit pensions toward defined-contribution retirement arrangements has also placed more responsibility for retirement income directly on households. As pensions guaranteeing predetermined monthly benefits have become less dominant, more retirees rely on investment portfolios whose value and sustainable withdrawal capacity fluctuate with financial markets.

For advisors, the data put renewed emphasis on decumulation strategy. When a larger portion of a retiree’s spending is funded through investments, portfolio construction is no longer only about maximizing long-term risk-adjusted returns. Liquidity reserves, withdrawal timing, realized gains, tax treatment and exposure to sequence-of-returns risk can directly affect the household’s ability to maintain planned consumption.

Market downturns may be particularly important. JPMorganChase observed interruptions in the long-term rise in investment withdrawals during several periods of major equity-market weakness, most notably in 2022. That pattern suggests households can change withdrawal behavior when markets fall, although the response has not been uniform across every downturn.

The implication is a potentially stronger transmission channel between Wall Street and the consumer economy. If households increasingly fund purchases by realizing accumulated investment wealth, a prolonged fall in asset prices could affect not only reported household net worth but also the amount of cash available for discretionary consumption. Conversely, periods of sustained market appreciation may increase the willingness or capacity of asset-owning households to draw from portfolios.

The growing role of investment withdrawals comes as broader U.S. saving measures remain comparatively low. The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported a personal saving rate of 3.0% in July 2026, with personal consumption expenditures increasing 0.2% during the month. JPMorganChase researchers said increased investment-funded spending is consistent with downward pressure on measured saving because households can sustain spending above other incoming cash flows by drawing on previously accumulated financial wealth.

The report does not imply that American households as a whole are simply liquidating their portfolios. The Institute found substantial growth on both sides of investment accounts. More consumers are depositing money into investments at the same time that another population is withdrawing from them. That two-way growth is one of the research’s most significant findings.

Younger households, in particular, have become more active investors. Among individuals aged 25 to 44, the share making net investments increased from 8.5% in 2019 to 16.6% in 2025. For those aged 45 to 64, the share increased from 5.8% to 10.9%, while the proportion among people 65 and older rose from 2.6% to 4.7%.

Net withdrawals also increased in all three groups. The share of 25-to-44-year-olds withdrawing on a net basis rose from 5.9% in 2019 to 11.7% in 2025. For those aged 45 to 64, it increased from 7.1% to 12.9%, and for individuals 65 and older it moved from 12.7% to 17.6%.

That combination points to a broader structural change: investment accounts are increasingly integrated into financial life across the entire age spectrum. Younger consumers are building portfolios in greater numbers, while older Americans are drawing on accumulated investments more frequently. At the same time, some younger households are also using portfolios as a source of liquidity before retirement.

Among top-income individuals aged 25 to 44, nearly one in four made net investment withdrawals in 2025, according to the report, and those transfers were equivalent to almost 7% of the group’s spending. For below-median-income people in the same age range, the proportion making withdrawals more than doubled from 2019 to 2025, reaching approximately 7%, though their investment flows represented a much smaller portion of spending.

The broadening use of investment accounts may reflect several forces beyond ordinary retirement decumulation. JPMorganChase identified potential contributors including stock-based employee compensation, intergenerational wealth transfers, funding for major purchases such as homes and the use of investments to smooth consumption during periods when current income is insufficient to cover desired expenditures.

For wealth-management firms, the findings expand the relevance of cash-flow planning beyond traditional retiree portfolios. Clients who receive equity compensation, entrepreneurs holding concentrated positions, younger affluent investors and households receiving inherited financial assets may all require strategies for converting investment wealth into spending while managing taxes and maintaining long-term portfolios.

Advisors may also need to distinguish between planned withdrawals and withdrawals caused by financial stress. A high-income retiree systematically selling assets according to a retirement-income plan represents a different financial condition from a working-age investor repeatedly liquidating holdings to cover recurring expenses. Aggregate transfer data can identify the movement of cash but cannot fully identify the motivation behind each transaction.

JPMorganChase also cautioned that transfers into checking do not necessarily translate dollar-for-dollar into immediate consumption. Some of the money may remain in checking balances or be used for debt repayment. However, researchers noted that median cash balances have remained relatively close to their pre-pandemic trend after declining from unusually high pandemic-era levels, supporting the interpretation that a significant portion of continuing investment inflows is facilitating spending rather than simply accumulating as cash.

The Institute’s methodology is also intentionally a gross measure. When one household withdraws investment assets and another adds money to an investment account, the latter household’s contribution is not subtracted from the former household’s withdrawal in calculating the amount of spending supported by investment inflows. The objective is to measure how much spending capacity is associated with portfolio-to-checking transfers among households drawing money out, not to calculate aggregate net liquidation of financial assets across the economy.

That distinction matters when interpreting the headline figure. A 6.8% share does not signify that Americans collectively reduced investment holdings by an amount equal to 6.8% of spending. It means that positive net investment-to-checking flows observed among withdrawers were equivalent to 6.8% of total spending measured in the sample.

The distribution of those flows also underscores the unequal exposure of households to changes in financial markets. Rising equity prices disproportionately increase the resources of households that already own substantial financial assets. Those households can then convert some of that appreciation into spending power. Consumers with few investment assets receive little comparable benefit when markets rise, while younger people accumulating assets may face higher purchase valuations.

For portfolio managers and advisors, that reinforces the importance of viewing household wealth and household spending as increasingly interconnected. Asset allocation decisions can affect not only long-term net worth but also near-term liquidity, retirement income and consumption stability. Where clients depend heavily on portfolio withdrawals, maintaining an appropriate reserve of lower-volatility assets can become part of spending management rather than merely a defensive investment preference.

The findings also suggest that consumer behavior may become more sensitive to market cycles as investment ownership and portfolio activity expand. JPMorganChase stopped short of asserting a simple causal relationship between stock prices and spending, and individual households can react differently to market movements. Still, the growth in observable cash flows from investments into transaction accounts provides evidence that financial assets are serving a larger role in financing consumption than they did a decade ago.

That development leaves wealth managers confronting two simultaneous trends: more Americans are entering markets and accumulating investment assets, while a growing population is treating those same assets as an active source of cash. The result is a financial lifecycle in which investing, spending and liquidity management are becoming more tightly connected.

For affluent households in particular, the boundary between an investment portfolio and a spending account is increasingly permeable. JPMorganChase’s data suggest that the transition has been underway for years and has accelerated in the post-pandemic period. If it persists, portfolio performance, withdrawal discipline and financial-market volatility could become increasingly important not only to household wealth but also to the durability of U.S. consumer spending.