Merchants work on the New York Inventory Change flooring on Feb. 20, 2025.
Spencer Platt | Getty Pictures
An costly inventory market didn’t stop merchants from getting extra bullish as traders more and more wager that the bull run might maintain chugging alongside, in keeping with Charles Schwab’s new quarterly shopper survey.
The bulls proceed to outnumber the bears amongst merchants 51% to 34%, in keeping with Schwab’s survey, which polled 1,040 lively merchants final month. Younger merchants underneath the age of 40 particularly confirmed a spike in optimism, with bullishness leaping to 59%. That compares to 47% within the fourth quarter. The optimistic sentiment got here at the same time as two-thirds of the merchants imagine the market is overvalued, the survey mentioned.
“It is clear that almost all of merchants imagine there’s some froth available in the market however on steadiness additionally they really feel like there’s nonetheless extra room for the bulls to run,” mentioned James Kostulias, head of buying and selling companies at Charles Schwab. “Greater than half of merchants plan to maneuver further cash into shares in Q1,” Kostulias added.
Whereas bullishness signifies optimistic views available on the market, it may also be seen as a opposite indicator when there are indicators of extra.
S&P 500
After a booming two-year interval during which the S&P 500 climbed greater than 50%, the momentum has slowed as of late with rising issues about an financial slowdown and heightened volatility from fast coverage adjustments from the brand new administration. The fairness benchmark is just up 1.3% on the yr, whereas the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has dipped into detrimental territory for 2025.
By way of sectors, merchants are most bullish on power, tech, finance and utilities. These sectors are sometimes beneficiaries underneath the Trump administration because of potential deregulation.
The survey additionally detected a big drop within the variety of merchants who imagine a recession will happen within the U.S. Solely a 3rd of the respondents known as it “considerably doubtless,” in comparison with 54% within the prior quarter.
The vast majority of merchants additionally didn’t see a reacceleration in inflation, with two-thirds of them seeing worth pressures holding regular.
