FLORIDA (Commodity Online):Investors’ confidence in U.S. markets and the economy has increased slightly, with 49% of investors polled expressing bullish sentiments about the markets, compared with 48% in January, 2010, according to the latest MoneyShow.com Investors’ Sentiment Indicator. The number of bearish investors has decreased to 32% from 34% since the last poll in January.

Investors’ favorite asset class is precious metals (gold and silver): Some 19% of those polled say precious metals will perform best for the rest of this year. They also like large-cap US stocks (15%) and small/mid-cap U.S. stocks (13%).

Investors expect inflation to remain constant (37%), while 60% of those polled don’t see the end of the U.S. recession until 2010 or later. A majority—60%—think we’re in a volatile market that won’t make big moves either way, while 41% believes the market will improve or remain the same.

On other topics, some 54% of investors said they expect Congress to pass some form of health-care reform by the end of 2010. Twenty-seven percent of individuals polled expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates and withdraw monetary stimulus, 37% believe that they will keep rates where they are, and withdraw monetary stimulus, while 35% expect that the Federal Reserve will trade less than last year.

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The MoneyShow.com Investors’ Sentiment Indicator polled 456 investors from its member list between November 13 and November 17, 2009. The complete findings of the Investors’ Sentiment Indicator will be available on MoneyShow.com, and they will be announced at The World MoneyShow in Orlando, Florida.

MoneyShow.com, the largest multimedia investment education destination for investors and traders, conducts several surveys of individual investors and traders throughout the year whose results are presented at its trade shows and on MoneyShow.com (Businesswire)