In 1997, I was one of three founding partners of a new financial planning and investment advisory firm. When we formed Millennial Group, the name was born out of all the discussion, excitement, and anticipation about the turn of the millennium. There was much talk at that point in time regarding Y2K. We thought through a number of different names for the firm and, based on advice from one of my high school English teachers, we settled on our new corporate identity.
There was no talk about the "Millennial Generation" at that point in time, as they were just being born. However, you can barely open a newspaper or browse the internet today without being deluged with articles about these Millennials. Most of us are familiar with what kind of influence the "Baby Boomer" generation had on America. They were born from 1946 to 1964, post-World War II. At that time, it was the largest generation in existence and they had a significant impact on many phases of the economy, and even the stock market, over time. There were 77 million Baby Boomers born during that time.
The Millennial Generation was born between 1980 and the year 2000, and outnumbers the Baby Boomers by 15 million...totaling nearly 92M people. They have significantly different thought processes, buying and spending habits, debt profiles, and trust issues with financial and investment issues that we will explore. As many of you are parents or grandparents to this Millennial Generation, we trust that you will understand and see some of these issues on a first-hand basis when thinking about your own children or grandchildren. It is important that we understand the people that we live with and work with, as well as the family that will inherit our wealth as we continue to move life forward.