ACTION IN THE FINANCIAL MARKETS : DOMESTIC : Many Stock Fans Are Just ‘Nibbling’

So the stock market boomeranged Friday after Congress booted the budget deal. It was just more of the same to small investors, many of whom surrendered the market to institutions months--if not years--ago as it took on the characteristics of a theme park thrill ride.

But some individuals remain, experts say. And those who are appear to be in for the long haul.

Geraldine Weiss, who publishes an advisory newsletter out of La Jolla called Investment Quality Trends, says she gets calls from small stockholders every day.

“They’re interested,” Weiss said. “They aren’t committing huge amounts of capital, but they are nibbling.”

Los Angeles immigration lawyer Carl M. Shusterman has been adding to his stock portfolio in the last year, buying an issue shortly before the Persian Gulf crisis erupted. Unfortunately, he said, most of his stocks have taken a turn for the worse.

“I just have to pray to the rain god that they come back,” Shusterman quipped.

Camarillo businessman Daniel T. Reiner said he has taken most--but not all--of his money out of stocks and put it into, among other places, Dallas real estate. “I figure that’s safer than the stock market,” he said.

Reiner, owner of Optical Devices, which makes anti-glare screens for computer terminals, also owns real estate in Malibu and the Oakland area, and he has parked some cash in mutual funds.

The stock market “is too volatile for me,” he said. “By the time some broker calls me and tells me what’s going on, the institutions and the guys that run the market have acted 24 or 48 hours before.”

In recent weeks, customers of Fidelity Investments have been calling the nation’s largest mutual fund company and discount brokerage firm frequently to check on yields and prices, but few have been changing their investments, said Michael Hines, vice president of marketing for the Boston-based firm.

“What we’re hearing from investors is that, for the time being, their short-term enthusiasm for purchasing equities is subdued,” he said. “The tenor of the small investor at this point is to wait and see, a sort of cautious optimism” that is not resulting in massive stock sales.

Few people who already own stock have plans to buy more soon, according to Albert E. Sindlinger, who has been surveying American households daily for 36 years. Nearly 4% of those surveyed planned to buy stocks soon, up from an all-time low of 1.1% three weeks ago. In 1987, before the stock market crash in October, 30% of those surveyed planned buys over the short term.

Now, the number of shareholders has been holding relatively steady for several months, said Sindlinger, a Wallingford, Pa.-based economist. About 48.2 million individuals owned stock on Oct. 1, he said. That figure stood at 49.5 million on Jan. 1.

“In the last few weeks, the suckers have come back in,” he said. “Fear hasn’t yet hit them. They’re still working on greed.”