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In today's volatile market, it may be instructive to the average investor to see how the rich plan to react to a potential correction. A survey released today by Bank of America (BAC) unit U.S. Trust shows that they don't plan on doing much.

U.S. Trust asked nearly 1,000 adults with at least $3 million in investible assets about their investment preferences for 2018. While the typical retail investor may be inclined to sell when the market dips, most high-net-worth investors think differently. Forty percent of respondents said they'd make no changes to their portfolio if the market declined by 10% or more, and another 42% would see the drop as a buying opportunity. Only about 16% of the respondents would sell in that scenario.

High-net-worth millennials, defined as aged 21 to 37, are more skittish; 40% of them said they'd sell if the market fell by more than 10%. It's not the only measurement where millennials stand out.

Wealthy investors have on average allocated 55% of their investments to stocks, 21% to bonds, 15% to cash, and 10% to alternative and other investments. That last category includes private equity, private debt, hedge funds, venture capital, real assets, and art collections. The allocations for the affluent as a whole was about the same in the first quarters of this year and last year.

Flush millennials, however, keep more in cash, but have become much more aggressive in equities over the past year. According to the survey, they've slashed their average cash holdings to 21% in the first quarter from 46% a year ago. They've moved most of it into stocks (to a 46% allocation from 25%) and alternative investments (to 17% from 12%).

To be sure, high-net-worth millennials still hold the lowest percentage of stock allocations among all the age groups. Rather than primarily relying on traditional investment instruments of stocks and bonds, younger investors are more likely to hold alternative assets–both in public and private markets–in their portfolios. On average, they've allocated 17% of total portfolio holdings to alternative assets, while the average for all respondents is only 10%.

Well-to-do millennials sport their own investment style and eschew the beliefs of previous generations; 61% of them don't think it’s possible to achieve above-average returns by investing solely in stocks and bonds anymore, compared with 30% of all respondents. About 69% of the younger set believe they can make more money by investing in the private markets than in the public markets, while only 30% of all respondents agree.

Another notable trend: Interest in property investment has dropped significantly among respondents. While 68% said they own or are interested in owning real assets in 2017, the number fell to 48% this year, with the steepest drop in the residential real-estate sector. Interest in owning commercial real estate, farmland, and timberland has risen, on the other hand. The decline was largely driven by investors who exited real-estate investment trusts last year after a disappointing performance relative to other assets, according to U.S. Trust.

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