Investor Confidence Reaches Its Highest In a Year, PaineWebber Survey Finds
NEW YORK -- Investor confidence hit its highest in more than a year, reversing a three-month decline, despite a wobbly stock market, a PaineWebber Group Inc. survey says.</br></br>The survey's results, based on a poll last month of 5,000 PaineWebber brokerage customers, shows market sentiment is mixed, however.</br></br>Stock-market bears outnumbered bulls for the second straight month, though more investors were neutral in May than in April, reflecting continued uncertainty about the prospects of the markets.</br></br>At the same time, six out of 10 investors polled said they think the recent financial-market decline was a "correction" and not the start of a bear market. Most of these investors believe the Dow Jones Industrial Average will decline only slightly further, then start to rise slowly.</br></br>Despite some gut-wrenching declines in the spring, the Dow Jones Industrial Average now stands at just about the same level as it did at the start of the year.