This collaboration between NZSA and University of Canterbury (UC) Business School is part of our mission to promote a thriving market and to be the voice of investors. A sentiment index will contribute to the understanding of investor behaviour and the overall market and allow you to get first access to the data and make better-informed investment decisions.
Have your say!
Each week, a random selection of NZSA members are sent an email to complete the survey. If you wish to participate in the NZ Investor Sentiment Index Survey anyway, you can click on this link anytime – also contained in each Briefing newsletter. The sentiment survey is conducted weekly from Thursday 12:01am to Wednesday 11:45pm.
This Week’s Results:
This week’s commentary – November 19th, 2025
New Zealand stock market sentiment
Neutral and bearish sentiment of individual investors about the short-term direction of the NZ stock market increased in this week’s survey, while bullish decreased.
- Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, decreased by 29.1 percentage points to 47.1%.
- Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will essentially stay unchanged over the next six months, increased by 25.8 percentage points to 35.3%.
- Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, increased by 3.4 percentage points to 17.7%.
New Zealand sector level sentiment
Bullish and bearish decreases for most sectors, while neutral increases for most sectors.
- The level of optimism among individual investors is highest for health care (50.0%), followed by primary sector (46.7%) and financials (43.8%). Bullish sentiment is lowest for consumer discretionary (12.5%), followed by industrials (20.0%) and energy (25.0%).
- The level of neutral sentiment is highest for industrials (73.3%), followed by IT and energy (both at 62.5%). Neutral sentiment is lowest for primary sector (40.0%), followed by real estate and financials (both at 43.8%).
- The level of pessimism is highest for consumer discretionary (31.3%), followed by primary sector (13.3%) and energy (12.5%). Pessimism is lowest for health care and IT (both at 6.3%), followd by industrials (6.7%).
International sentiment
Bullish and neutral regarding the short-term direction of the Australian market increased. Simultaneously, bearish decreased in this week’s survey. Investor sentiment about the short-term direction of the U.S. market is the same except for neutral.
- Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, increased by 3.9 percentage points to 56.3% for Australian stocks and by 10.4 percentage points to 43.8% for U.S. stocks.
- Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will stay flat over the next six months, increased by 4.2% percentage points to 37.5% for Australian stocks and decreased by 5.4 percentage points to 37.5% for U.S. stocks.
- Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, decreased by 8.0 percentage points to 6.3% for Australian stocks and decreased by 5.1 percentage points to 18.8% for U.S. stocks.
New Zealand personal investment sentiment
If the investor were to purchase equity, the proportion of investors planning to increase their investment in small and large shares, as well as nothing increased compared to last week. Conversely, the proportion of those who planning to increase their investment in funds or uncertain about their future investment allocation, decreased.
- The proportion of investors anticipating an increase in their small cap shares increased by 8.1 percertage points to 17.7% this week if they were to purchase equity.
- The proportion of investors anticipating an increase in their large cap shares increased by 6.7 percentage points to 35.3% this week if they were to purchase equity.
- The proportion of investors anticipating an increase in their funds decreased by 2.5 percentage points to 11.8% this week if they were to purchase equity.
- The proportion of investors anticipating no change in their equity allocation increased by 5.6 percentage points to 29.4% this week.
- The proportion of investors who express uncertainty about their equity allocation decreased by 17.9 percentage points to 5.9% this week.
Historic Data
There have been wide variations since the survey began (January 2020) in Investor Sentiment. The following chart shows:
- the lowest recorded response for each type of sentiment (the lower ‘whisker’)
- the recorded responses between 25th – 75th percentile (the ‘box’)
- the median response score – ie, exactly 50% of scores are above and below this number
- the maximum response (excluding ‘outliers’)
- Interestingly, NZ Investors have displayed a greater tendency towards expressing “negative” (bearish) sentiment since the survey’s inception.