Freedom Lawyers of America

Poll: 'Get me the heck out of here'
As stock losses take toll, folks still shockingly upbeat

By Thom Calandra, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 11:32 AM ET Sep 10, 2002
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- This is for the 54.95 people making money in the stock market.

The figure, 54.95, comes to 5 percent of 1,099 Americans polled about financial markets in a just-released CBS MarketWatch/CBS News national survey. Clearly, the money-makers in this, the third losing year for stocks, have a 5 percent solution for profits.

After all, 66 percent of investors say their retirement accounts have lost money these past two years. Many others report no change. So most of us would like to know what those 54.95 people are doing right. See the poll story and results.

Are the winners buying gold? Real estate? Water rights? Selling puts on CBOE volatility options? What?

Many of the investors who responded to this telephone poll are, dare we say, shockingly upbeat about where the stock market is headed the next few years. Just 9 percent have lost all faith in the stock market. And 47 percent say the Dow Jones Industrial Average will reach 10,000 in the next one to two years.

The 9 percent who see the stock market as a shell game can be forgiven. They are the same 9 percent of the American population whose eyes are glued to computer screens, digesting report after report of corporate shenanigans.

These are the folks who don't care anymore about where the Dow ends each week. They have been born again to a new way of life, one without stocks. That level of epiphany, 9 percent of the investing public, can only grow as the fires of Mordor incinerate America's retirement accounts.

On Wall Street, investor surveys are worth their weight in (pick one: gold, platinum, soy futures). The professionals look to investors to catch the mood of the market. When investors feel close to chucking all their stocks down the disposal, the market usually rallies. When everyone feels just grand about stocks, the market tumbles.

The poll's respondents are just like Americans everywhere. Most are either looking for their next score or getting gun-shy about stocks:

"Took my money out of stocks and bought a condo," said one investor.
"I'm changing over to annuities and real estate," said another. See the full real-estate story.
"My five-year plan will now be in real estate as opposed to stocks," said yet another malcontent.
"Put 401(k) money into fixed interest investments," said another.
"Fired our broker, moved into bonds ... and land."
"My money is sitting in money-market accounts. I am a lot slower to buy stocks."
"I just withdrew money out of the stock market and put it in a credit-union (account) at 4.06 percent."
"If Lucent Technologies (LU) doesn't go bankrupt it will be worth $10 next year. It's time to buy stocks."
"I stopped looking at stocks as a potential windfall, put my money in improving my lifestyle, buying a new car, new tools for work."
"Sure as heck not going into the stock market."
In all fairness, the folks on Main Street who responded to this poll are more or less divided evenly about the state of the economy. Some 48 percent say it is good and 50 percent say it is bad. Some 51 percent expect the American economy to have improved a year from now.

I think most of us, after scanning these poll results, would sure as heck like to know a) just what makes real estate a great investment these days; b) how much higher government bond prices can go when the national debt (companies, individuals and Washington) is $30 trillion; and c) the address of that credit union with the 4 percent return.

The 54.95 profiteers out there can give us a heads-up on that. See the poll story and results.