--- title: Individual Investors Are Staying Calm Despite the Stock Slide description: Despite recent stock market declines, two news studies suggest individual investors are remaining calm. authors: - name: Paul J. Lim url: https://money.com/author/paul-j-lim-3/ at_money_since: 2014 articles: 104 covers: - Investing - Banking - Business - Economy and Politics - Housing - Identity Theft - Retirement - Taxes social: - https://x.com/pauljlim former_staff: true published: '2016-01-19T11:30:01.000Z' modified: '2024-04-16T09:44:42.000Z' section: Investing tags: - bear market - correction - Dow - investors - stocks word_count: 423 canonical: https://money.com/investors-stay-calm-despite-stock-slide/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![meditation stone zen rock garden](https://img.money.com/2016/01/160115_inv_keepcalm.jpg) So far this year, the Dow Jones industrial average has sunk more than 1,436 points, amounting to an 8% loss in stock market wealth. If you go back to the market's highs last year, the Dow is now down nearly 13%, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index is off nearly 12%. Yet individual investors appear to be surprisingly calm. How can we tell? First, a new survey of of investors with at least $10,000 in their accounts, conducted between January 6 and 11 by the online broker E\*Trade, found the following: **Investors are growing more bearish...** 55% of self-directed investors described themselves as being "bearish"—meaning they believe the stock market is going to decline—up from 44% last summer. **... but a majority remain positive.** In total, 54% of investors think the market will either "stay basically where it is" or "rise" in the next three months. By contrast, only 23% expect a 5% drop and just 16% are bracing for a 16% decline. **Very few investors are forecasting armageddon.** Only 2% of respondents said they expect a 20% decline or greater. **And investors remain positive about the economy.** One third of investors describe the underlying economy as being "good" or "great" and another 47% describe it as "fair." In all, only 20% describe the economy as being poor, which is important. Why? First, it reduces the odds of a full-blown bear market, since equities foreshadow what’s to come in the economy six to nine months down the road. And even if the selling continues, a growing economy decreases the likelihood of a grisly crash. Major sell-offs that didn’t precede recessions have averaged losses of around 20%. That pales in comparison to the 50% or greater losses in the last two bear markets. Meanwhile, a Jan. 14 survey of investor sentiment by the American Association of Individual Investors also reveals something interesting. **While bearishness is on the rise...** Right now, [less than 18% of investors](http://www.aaii.com/sentimentsurvey/sent_results) in this survey described themselves as being "bullish," while more than 45% say they are "bearish". The [ratio of self-described bulls to bears](https://money.com/stock-market-dow-crash-reasons/) has fallen to the lowest levels in history. **...bears are not in the majority.** The AAII survey does something interesting. In addition to letting investors describe themselves as bullish or bearish, it gives respondents a third choice: "neutral." If you add the number of "neutral" respondents to the bulls, about 55% of investors are bullish or neutral. And that's roughly the same percentage of neutral-plus-bullish investors as in March 2009, when this bull market began. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/investors-stay-calm-despite-stock-slide/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Investing", "item": "https://money.com/investing/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Investors", "item": "https://money.com/investors/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Individual Investors Are Staying Calm Despite the Stock Slide" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/investors-stay-calm-despite-stock-slide/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/investors-stay-calm-despite-stock-slide/", "name": "Individual Investors Are Staying Calm Despite the Stock Slide", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-01-19T11:30:01.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/investors-stay-calm-despite-stock-slide/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/investors-stay-calm-despite-stock-slide/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-16T09:44:42.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Individual Investors Are Staying Calm Despite the Stock Slide", "articleSection": "Investing", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/01/160115_inv_keepcalm.jpg", "width": 2100, "height": 1400, "caption": "160115_INV_KEEPCALM" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Paul J. 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