Investor confidence sees slight rise in April

Investor confidence rose slightly in April 2019, accord to the State Street Investor Confidence Index, which rose from 71.2% to 72.9%. But it found that institutional investors are still cautious about increasing allocations to risky assets, despite good performance in the first quarter of 2019.

The increase was based on greater confidence among North American investors, while confidence dropped in Europe and Asia. The confidence index was developed by State Street to measure risk appetite among investors, by analysing their buying and selling patterns. It takes a higher allocation to equities as a sign of greater confidence among investors and takes a reading of 100 as neutral, where investors are not increasing or decreasing their allocation to risky assets. Commenting on the April results, State Street’s Rajeev Bhargava, head of Investor Behaviour Research, commented: “While equity markets demonstrated strong performance in Q1, institutional investors continue to show limited change in their risk appetite and have remained largely reluctant to jump back into risky assets.”