ETF Investors Are More Confident in Their Portfolios, Schwab Finds

What You Need to Know

They were more likely than investors without ETFs to say they were optimistic about the market and that their portfolio would recover from a deep recession.
Less than a third of ETF investors hold active ETFs but most say they are interested.
ETF investors, especially millennials, are interested in cryptocurrency ETFs.

Exchange-traded-fund investors are more confident in their holdings and express more optimism about the market than non-ETF investors, according to a new Charles Schwab survey.

Moreover, market uncertainties didn’t deter most ETF investors from staying the course or adding to their ETF holdings, Schwab Asset Management found in its annual ETFs and Beyond study, released Thursday.

Seventy-five percent of ETF investors expressed confidence their portfolios would recover from a deep recession or black swan event, compared with 58% for non-ETF investors, Schwab reported.

While 73% of ETF investors voiced optimism about the market, only 62% of non-ETF investors did the same. Over 90% of both groups feel confident about meeting their desired investment outcomes — 97% of ETF investors compared with 91% of those without ETFs.

“We’ve studied ETF investors for more than a decade now, and over that time, they have shown again and again that they take a long-term approach to investing and aren’t easily spooked by market headwinds,” David Botset, Schwab Asset Management managing director, head of Innovation and Stewardship, said.