Forty-three months into a bull market run and, it turns out, most investors still can’t get over the severe beat down they experienced in 2008, when the S&P 500 Index fell by nearly 40%.
According to Franklin Templeton, which is scheduled to release some new research later today, individual investors in general are both way too conservative and/or out of sync with what has been happening in the equity markets over the past few years.
One surprising finding shows that investors are likely so consumed by the negative economic news, including high unemployment and the weak housing market, that they haven’t even noticed the strength of the stock market.
For example, when 1,000 investors were asked whether they thought the S&P was up or down during each of the past three years, 66% thought it was down in 2009, 48% thought it was down in 2010, and 53% thought it was down last year.
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