Asians most confident in markets: FMA

Asians are far more confident in New Zealand’s financial markets than Pacific Islanders and Ma¯ori, while the confidence levels of most ethnicities eased in the Financial Markets Authority’s latest annual survey.

Men are also more confident in financial markets than women and the higher a respondent’s income, the more likely they were to express confidence.

The survey, the seventh by the FMA and the second conducted online using Buzz Channel’s research panel, buzzthepeople, found overall confidence in New Zealand financial markets steady at 65 per cent compared with 66 per cent in last year’s survey.

The survey, conducted between April 23 and May 7, included 1037 people over 18 and weighted by age, gender, region and ethnicity to ensure the results were representative of the New Zealand population. It has a 3 per cent margin for error at the 95 per cent confidence level.

However, most respondents’ confidence levels were fairly lukewarm with 56 per cent describing themselves as “fairly confident”, only 9 per cent choosing “very confident” and 15 per cent choosing “don’t know”.

The “very confident” respondents have increased from 4 per cent in 2013 when the “fairly confident” were 54 per cent.

Those who are not at all or not very confident fell to 20 per cent in the

The longer term trend [clearly] shows investor confidence on the rise. Rob Everett, FMA chief executive

latest survey, compared with 32 per cent in 2013.

“We expect to see investor confidence move around from year to year,” said FMA chief executive Rob Everett. “What’s more important is the longer term trend which clearly shows investor confidence on the rise.”

Those who are clearly more active investors tend to be more confident, Everett says. Of those in managed funds, 19 per cent are “very confident” and 66 per cent “fairly confident”. Of those whose only investment is KiwiSaver, 9 per cent are “very confident” and 55 per cent “fairly confident.”

The survey shows Asians were the most confident with 67 per cent expressing confidence compared to only 48 per cent of Pacific Islanders and 49 per cent of Ma¯ ori. Pakeha/New Zealand European respondents came in at 60 per cent. Confidence in 2018 was at 57 per cent among Ma¯ori.

About 57 per cent of female respondents expressed confidence compared with 65 per cent of men.

Of those with personal incomes of more than $100,000, 82 per cent expressed confidence, while only 46 per cent of those earning less than $20,000 were confident in financial markets.