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Anxiety About a Stock Market Drop Increases Among Wealthy Investors

October 21, 2019

Despite recent periods of volatility, the stock market is climbing back up to near-record highs. That doesn’t mean that wealthy investors are confident though. The most recent of E-Trade’s quarterly investor sentiment surveys shows that those with the most to lose are bracing for a market sell-off.

The survey showed that expectations of a stock market decline during the fourth quarter more than doubled for investors with more than $1 million in their brokerage accounts. Of these wealthy investors, 40 percent expect the market to drop in the fourth quarter. This number was only 19 percent when the survey was conducted last quarter.

The increased anxiety around a drop in the markets is part of a larger loss of economic confidence among the wealthy. The survey found that the number of millionaires who would give the U.S. economy a grade of A or B fell to 59 percent, down from 74 percent last quarter.

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