Our data shows that 67% expect the market to climb over the next year – a comfortably positive read, even if it's down slightly from 70% last quarter, the first dip in two quarters. Nearly three-quarters of respondents have at least $10,000 ready to put to work, regardless of that dip.
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The Q4 2026 Modern Investor Pulse, Finimize's quarterly survey of thousands of retail investors, shows a customer base that's patient, cash-rich, and actively deciding where their money goes next. For an institution built around deposits, that's a heck of an opportunity.

The optimism is real, but it's not blind

That dip in stock market optimism didn't happen in isolation. Bitcoin sentiment moved the other way: 58% now expect it to be higher in a year, up from 54%, the first quarterly increase in a year. 
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Taken together, this suggests recalibration. Investors are adjusting expectations without stepping back from the market, which is precisely the moment they're most receptive to guidance rather than a hard sell.

The cash is already sitting in your accounts

Almost three-quarters of respondents have at least $10,000 earmarked to invest over the next 12 months, and 23% have more than $100,000 ready to deploy. 
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That's not evenly spread by age: over 40% of over-65s have more than $100,000 on hand, with a quarter of them sitting on $200,000-plus. But don't write off the younger cohort – roughly two-thirds of 25-to-34-year-olds already have at least $10,000 set aside, and almost a fifth of that group has $50,000 or more. 
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Experience matters more than age here too: 56% of investors with a decade or more in the market hold over $50,000 to deploy, against just 9% of those who started this year.
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For a bank, this is a segmentation dream come true. The cash exists across your customer base right now – the job now is matching it to the right product and the right moment, rather than waiting for customers to come looking for it.

They trust fundamentals, not FOMO

When asked what actually drives their decisions, modern investors ranked long-term growth potential and company fundamentals well above recommendations from professionals, media coverage, or "fear of missing out."

FOMO and media coverage came in at the bottom of the list. This matters for institutional trust: customers are ignoring hype in favour of credible sources that help them think clearly. That's where content and education can do real work – credible, jargon-free material that earns trust rather than interrupting it.

What to do about it

1. Don't overlook younger customers: two-thirds of 25-to-34-year-olds already have at least $10,000 set aside. Segment your investing prompts by the wealth-and-experience split the data shows, rather than age alone – a 28-year-old with five years of investing experience may have more deployable cash than you assume.
   
   
2. Build onboarding and nudge content around fundamentals and long-term thinking, since that's explicitly what earns trust with this audience, and steer clear of hype-driven messaging that the data shows doesn't move them.
   
   
3. Use the moment: with intentions steady but sentiment shifting, now is when customers are actively reassessing where their money sits – a well-timed piece of credible, jargon-free content can be the nudge that keeps deposits from drifting to a platform that got there first.

How can we help?

At Finimize, we work with traditional banks and challengers on exactly this: content built to close the trust and knowledge gap with modern investors, delivered at the scale your customer base needs. 
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Get in touch to talk through what that could look like for you.