Who buys US shares, and how we know

The Federal Reserve's Financial Accounts of the United States record each quarter how much each part of the economy bought or sold of company shares: households, pension funds, insurers, mutual funds, ETFs, foreign investors and others.

Household purchases are worked out as what is left once every other sector is measured, so they also include hedge funds and other investors not reported separately, and they can change when other figures are revised.

Companies are on the other side. When they buy back shares, or are bought for cash in a takeover, shares leave the market; when they sell new shares, shares enter it. For most of the past decade US companies took more shares out than they put in.

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