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March 27 (UPI) -- Investor optimism in the United States was strong and solid in the first quarter of 2018, a Gallup survey released Tuesday indicates. The Wells Fargo/Gallup Investor and Retirement Optimism Index stands at +139, within a point of the past two quarters of 2017. The index surveys 1,321 U.S. investors with $10,000 or more invested in stocks, bonds or mutual funds about their personal finances and the overall national economic outlook.
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The survey asks investors about the national stock market, economic growth, unemployment and inflation as well as maintaining or increasing income over next year, reaching five-year investment goals and reaching 12-month investment goals in regards to their own investments.
At least 67 percent of survey participants were optimistic about each question regarding their personal investments and at least 60 percent were optimistic about three out of four aspects of the national economic outlook. Forty percent of investors expressed optimism about the state of inflation.
Optimism has increased by at least 9 percent on all of the personal and national measures except inflation and five-year investment goals in the past two years, the survey found.
The survey was conducted Feb. 12-25, a week after the Dow Jones industrial average experienced the largest single-day trading drop in its history, falling 1,175 points.
Although the market was volatile during the time the survey was conducted, 52 percent of investors expressed little or no concern about the volatility and 53 percent said they could tolerate declines of 10 percent or more in a $10,000 investment over the course of a year.
A majority of investors also expressed confidence in the market with 16 percent saying they had a great deal of confidence and 33 percent expressing quite a lot, versus 41 percent who had little confidence in the market and 7 percent who expressed none.
The survey was based on telephone interviews and included a 4 percent margin of error.
