"Main Street investor confidence soared to a new high in our survey this year," said Cindy Fornelli, CAQ executive director. "Investors place strong trust in America's market system, while also having high expectations and closely watching policy debates in Washington. The administration and Congress should heed our survey's list of investor concerns, which is topped by the growing national debt and the threat of cyber-attacks on the financial markets."

Additional findings from the survey:

• Eighty-three percent of investors have confidence investing in US publicly traded companies, a record high.

• Confidence in markets outside the US also rose sharply to 54 percent, up from 42 percent in 2016.

• Seventy-eight percent of investors say they are confident in audited financial information released by publicly held companies, up from 75 percent in 2016.

• Investors expressed exceptional degrees of confidence in the ability of external auditors (84 percent), audit committees (82 percent), and stock exchanges (82 percent) to fulfill their investor protection roles.

"The CAQ is pleased that independent auditors were again named as the most trusted entity looking out for investor interests," Fornelli said. "In light of these findings, we encourage regulators and policymakers to maintain important investor protections and encourage companies and boards to continue the positive trend of voluntarily disclosing more information to investors."