Recent releases of estimates of households' balance sheet and financial burdens (as of June '19) reveal that net worth continues to rise at the same time that households' leverage continues to decline. This bears repeating: asset values are rising, but risk aversion remains strong, and that's quite healthy.
Chart #1
As Chart #1 shows, the net worth (total assets less total liabilities) of the US private sector (households plus non-profit organizations) in June 2019 reached the staggering sum of just over $113 trillion. That's almost double what it was at the depths of the 2008-09