U.S. Investors Upbeat About Financial Goals, Poll Finds

NEW YORK —  U.S. investors are optimistic about their ability to meet their financial goals, but they harbor serious doubts about the federal government’s ability to do its job.

Pessimism about government grew even deeper after the Nov. 5 election and is especially pronounced among female investors.

Those are some of the findings of nationwide polling conducted by the Gallup Organization for the PaineWebber Inc. brokerage and scheduled for release today.

Los Angeles-area investors have about the same level of confidence as investors elsewhere in their ability to achieve personal goals, but they are more pessimistic about overall economic prospects, according to the survey, which included samples from five major cities and for the nation as a whole.

PaineWebber and Gallup have distilled an “index of investor optimism” from the survey, which they plan to update quarterly.

Among the five major cities surveyed separately, investors in Los Angeles were the least optimistic about the overall economic outlook--20% less optimistic than investors nationally. Dallas investors, by contrast, were 20% more optimistic than the national average.

David Moore, a Gallup senior analyst involved in the survey, said the continuing fallout from layoffs in the aerospace and banking industries probably accounts for the more pessimistic outlook.

The study also found that female investors tended to be less optimistic than men.

There was a significant change in attitudes nationally after the election, with overall optimism declining 5% and optimism about the government’s ability to deal effectively with budget issues declining a sharp 22%.

Moore said the findings seemed to reflect a feeling that the election had left the political situation little changed.