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Gallup conducted the poll Oct. 7-13 as the stock market was making modest gains. The survey also followed the federal government's monthly jobs report announcing that hiring had cooled in September amidst the ongoing trade war1, but that the unemployment rate had dipped to 3.5%, a 50-year low.

"With a mix of encouraging and discouraging economic news, investors chose to focus on the positive, lifting their confidence in the economy as well as their own financial outlook," said Adam Taback, deputy chief investment officer for Wells Fargo Private Bank.

The Wells Fargo/Gallup Investor and Retirement Optimism Index is a quarterly measure of U.S. investors' confidence in the investment climate, including their perceptions of the economy and their own financial situation. For this survey, investors are defined as U.S. adults with $10,000 or more invested in stocks, bonds or mutual funds.

Investor optimism on the economic dimension of the index had slumped to 16 last quarter from 35 earlier in the year. While it improved slightly to 20 in the most recent survey, the economic dimension remains weaker than it has been in some time.

By contrast, investor optimism on the personal index has held firm each quarter, so that the eight-point increase in the current survey brings the personal dimension to its highest level in more than a year.

According to the Q4 survey, most U.S. investors say their investment plan is on the right track (85%) and that they are prepared for a market correction (71%). Relatively few reports that fear of a market correction is making their life stressful (33%), including similar proportions of non-retired and retired investors.