Does Wall Street Touch Main Street?

Wall Street’s bull market, almost written off as the summer began, is roaring back and setting records. But does it matter on Main Street?

“It doesn’t make any difference to me,” retiree Alice Cross said Friday while she waited for a bus in downtown Des Moines as the Dow Jones industrial average was rising to new heights.

Asked if she owns stocks, she replied, “Are you kidding? Why do you think I’m riding the bus?”

But many Americans own stock - either assembling their own portfolio, or leaving the investment management decisions to mutual funds or retirement plans. The Securities and Exchange Commission estimates one in three U.S. families has money in the stock market.

Some are thrilled with the stunning rebound from the July sell-off.

“We’ve been doing great the past two years,” said Maryanne Shamoun, 31, of Kennesaw, Ga.

The market’s renewed vigor is important to the mother of two and her husband, a cryogenic engineer.

“We invest 17 percent of my husband’s income in the stock market. I think that will show you the effect it would have on our lives,” she said during a visit to Atlanta with her parents and children.

And with the new optimism on Wall Street, she said she’s ready to take even more risks on stocks.

“Ninety-five percent of our stocks are high risk, maybe 5 percent medium risk,” Shamoun said. Asked if she’s ready to call her broker and invest anew, she replied, “We would probably dump the lower-risk stocks and buy more higher-risk ones.”

The rally is important to her parents, who have a much different investing outlook.

“We’re rather conservative, but being a retiree, I think it will affect me in the future,” said Shamoun’s father, Harold Hughes of Fort Pierce, Fla. “I depend on my investments for a great deal of my income.”

But stocks are not the be-all nor end-all for lots of Americans, as a survey of public sentiment disclosed Friday:

Saturday’s college football game between Iowa and Iowa State dominated conversation Friday, even as downtown Des Moines stock brokerage signs flashed the news of the latest market surge.

“I don’t follow it,” said Isiah McKinney, a Des Moines retiree who said he neither owns stocks nor regrets missing the rally that has lifted Wall Street’s best-known indicator more than 14 percent so far this year after a 33.45 percent rise in 1995.

“I’ve got my Army pension,” McKinney said.

Scott Hansen, 45, who owns a gas station near Interstate 44 in Oklahoma City, said he was vaguely aware of the market’s climb, but prefers to plow his scarce extra money back into his business.

Despite the market’s strong performance, Hansen sees it as a crap shoot for rich people who can afford to lose money.

“That’s all the stock market is, it’s a gamble,” Hansen said.

“I know enough about it to know it has its ups and downs,” said Richard Davis, 27, an accountant with a mutual fund brokerage in Los Angeles. “It’s nothing I would bet all my savings on.”

But elsewhere in Los Angeles, Susan Dejesta, a 25-year-old financial analyst, said: “Any positive sign is good.” Dejesta and some co-workers are investing in the market for the first time and said, “Everyone now is investing more than they used to.”

“I don’t really care. I don’t really follow it. To be honest, I’m not really interested,” said Randy Stancio, 36, a restaurant worker in Concord, N.H. He said he has money invested, but his aunt and his stockbroker take care of it and he never thinks about it.

“I don’t trust anything having to do with money,” he said.