A Nation of Investors An unprecedented boom in the stock market, combined with the ease of investing in stocks, led to a sharp increase in public participation in securities markets during the 1990s. The annual trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange, or "Big Board," soared from 11,400 million shares in 1980 to 169,000 million shares in 1998. Between 1989 and 1995, the portion of all U.S. households owning stocks, directly or through intermediaries like pension funds, rose from 31 percent to 41 percent. Public participation in the market has been greatly facilitated by mutual funds, which collect money from individuals and invest it on their behalf in varied portfolios of stocks. Mutual funds enable small investors, who may not feel qualified or have the time to choose among thousands of individual stocks, to 58