Investors' excitement toward stocks is dimming as the Standard & Poor's 500 Index has dropped 0.5 percent so far this year.

Sentiment was sky high for much of 2013, when the index soared 29.6 percent.

Stocks may "stumble along a little here and digest the results of last year," Michael Fredericks, who oversees BlackRock's Multi-Asset Income Fund, told The Wall Street Journal.

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Investors who sell now may be saving themselves from bigger losses. But if most experts are correct in predicting higher stock prices for the year as a whole, getting out of the market now would mean giving up on returns to come.

Janna Sampson, co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments, is taking a cautious stance. "I would definitely not up my equity exposure in this market at all," she told The Journal. "But to pull out . . ." She says she's not doing that either.

Fredericks thinks stocks are dependent on the economy. "To get another leg up in the short run we will have to get even more positive surprises from the economy," he noted. Still, he sees the economy as a supportive factor for stocks.

Bruce Bittles, chief investment strategist at RW Baird, believes investors' extreme bullishness is hurting stocks.

"That means for the short term they’re fully invested," he told Bloomberg. "Stocks have entered the new year overbought and over-believed, and until we digest that, we’re likely to stay in this range."

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