Individual Investors Face Their Fears and Keep Buying These Stocks

As volatility cooled following the recent 90-day tariff truce, individual investors kept buying the dips on some of their favorite stocks, even though anxiety levels are high, according to Investopedia’s recent sentiment survey.

Individual investors have been on an emotional rollercoaster this year amid the Trump administration’s aggressive and sometimes-unclear tariff policies and economic agenda. Recent news that the U.S. and China agreed to a 90-day negotiation period in their tariff war and other developments have helped spur a rally across the capital markets, and the S&P 500 has recovered all of its losses since Trump’s “Liberation Day” on April 2. 

While that has quelled some of the anxiety among individual investors, 55% of respondents to our latest Investor Sentiment Survey say they are still “somewhat concerned” about recent market events. That’s a 6-percentage-point drop from a month ago, but their level of concern is still near four-year highs. Twenty-eight percent of respondents say they are “extremely worried,” while 18% say they are not worried at all. 

Staying the Course and Seeking Diversification

While 42% of respondents said they are making safer investments into securities like money market funds, high-yield savings, index funds, and diversified exchange-traded funds (ETFs), nearly half, or 47%, said they haven’t made changes to their investments or their allocations. Eleven percent indicated that they have made riskier investments in products like inverse ETFs and single stocks of companies that experienced heavy sell-offs. 

According to Vanda Research, the single stocks that experienced the most buying activity by retail investors outside of their 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts include Tesla (TSLA), Nvidia (NVDA), Palantir Technologies (PLTR), Ford Motor (F), and Robinhood Markets (HOOD). 

What Investors Are Worried About Now

Tariffs and reciprocal tariffs top our readers list of concerns, just as they have for the past several months, as does the threat of a recession. Nearly three-fourths of respondents, or 72%, say there’s at least a 50/50 chance of a recession over the next 12 months, and about one-third say they believe one is likely or very likely. U.S. relations with China, which are centered on tariffs, are also high on the list of investor worries, followed by inflation and stagflation. 

Trust in the Capital Markets Wanes

The recent volatility in the stock market continues to weigh on investors’ faith in the capital markets, according to the survey. Forty-seven percent of respondents indicated that they trust the markets less since the Trump administration took office. Just 16% said they trust them more, while nearly one-third said the new administration has had no effect on their trust. 

Raising Their Expectations—Slightly

Investors have been curbing their expectations for stock market returns since the beginning of the year, according to our surveys, but the recent recovery in the market has added a few sprinkles of optimism.

One in four expect the stock market to return at least 5% over the next six months, a 12-percentage-point increase from mid-April. At the same time, one in four expect losses of at least 5% over the next six months, although that has declined 17 percentage points from last month.

Don’t Stop Believing

Most respondents, or 61%, still believe that U.S. equities will deliver the best returns over the next decade compared with other major asset classes like bonds, gold, and bitcoin. Our readers remain very committed and faithful to their favorite stocks, like Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Amazon (AMZN), as shown in the illustration below.

Those stocks have delivered historic returns over the past decade, and respondents are depending on them to continue providing them for the next 10 years. Here are the top stocks our readers said they would buy and hold for the next decade. Look familiar? 

When readers were asked what one stock they would buy and hold today, the largest share of write-ins went to Berkshire Hathaway and Nvidia, followed by Microsoft and Amazon. In general, however, the survey showed much overlap between what stocks readers are already holding and what they would invest in long-term.

Where Would You Invest $10,000 Today?

Despite their faith in their favorite stocks, not all of our readers would choose to put an extra $10,000 into them today if they had it to invest.

Safer investments like high yield savings accounts, certificates of deposit, and money market accounts top the list of where they would put that discretionary capital to work, followed by ETFs or index funds, and then individual stocks. Investors may need more convincing that the stock market is really back on terra firma to restore their confidence.