News Investing News Stock Market Optimism Is Fading, Survey Shows Off the Charts: The Visual Says It All By Medora Lee Updated on September 17, 2021 Fact checked by Helen Reis Fact checked by Helen Reis Helen is the senior news editor for The Balance and a veteran journalist with more than 17 years of experience, mostly in business and finance news. She is passionate about making complicated topics easy for everyone to understand and compulsive about accuracy and transparency. learn about our editorial policies Photo: CasarsaGuru/Getty Images It’s been quite a year for stock market investors, but optimism about the future is fading. A monthly Deutsche Bank survey of stock market professionals shows fewer and fewer believe the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will be higher in three months. In fact, the September data shows optimism has only been lower once in the last year, if you subtract the share who predict it will go lower from the percentage who believe it will go higher. A net 14% of the 550 stock market professionals surveyed in September expected the popular stock market benchmark to rise, down from a net 22% in July, the last time the survey was taken. In the last year, the only other time there was less optimism was in May, when higher-than-expected inflation was seen as a big risk to stocks and the net share was just 6%. The S&P 500 is up 18% this year, having been relatively immune to economic uncertainties raised by the recent surge in COVID-19 cases. The index touched a record high a dozen times in August alone and last set one on Sept. 2. Since then it’s down 2.3%. “Remember the market has run up a long way over this period,” said Jim Reid, head of thematic research at Deutsche Bank, in an email Tuesday. He forecasts stocks will see a correction of between 5% and 10% this quarter but rally back to close to where they are currently by the end of the year. Have a question, comment, or story to share? You can reach Medora at medoralee@thebalance.com. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit Sources The Balance uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Deutsche Bank Research. “Vaccinating the Global Economy.”