“On the heels of the recent announcement that the recession officially ended in June 2009, these findings make sense,” said Kim Wells, chief marketing officer at Scottrade. “Even though investors are still stressed about finances, they may be drawn to increase their investments due to an improvement in their expectations around the market’s performance that has been growing over the last year.” Expectations made a dramatic year-over-year leap, with 43 percent of investors believing the market will be up over the prior year, vs. 28 percent in 2009.
Investors’ Belief in Market Persists
“Lately there have been stories about market-wary investors potentially leaving the market for good,” Wells said. “Many of our data points suggest otherwise. While there is no disputing that the last couple of years have been hard on investors, it seems that many still have faith that their portfolios will bounce back as the market improves.” The majority of investors (52 percent) are not changing the amount they invest, and more than a third (34 percent) have not changed their investing strategy due to the economic downturn.
“There has also been recent talk of an increase in stock-shy investors, but this data is showing that investors are not abandoning stock,” Wells said. “While it’s true that some investors (31 percent) are investing less due to the downturn, almost half of investors own stock – and that number (48 percent) has not changed since last year.”
