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!
If you wish to participate in the NZ Investor Sentiment Index Survey you can do so by updating your member profile at this link. The sentiment survey is conducted weekly from Thursday 12:01am to Wednesday 11:45pm. Each week you will receive a new email invitation to the current survey.
This Week’s Results:
The “amber” section of these dials show the middle quartiles (ie, 25th – 75th percentile) since the NZSA / UC Retail Investor Sentiment survey began in 2020.
This week’s commentary – July 10th, 2024
New Zealand stock market sentiment
Bullish sentiment of individual investors about the short-term direction of the NZ stock market increased in this week’s survey while neutral and bearish decreased.
- Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, increased by 6.3 percentage points to 50.0%.
- Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will essentially stay unchanged over the next six months, decreased by 0.6 percentage points to 40.0%.
- Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, decreased by 5.6 percentage points to 10.0%.
New Zealand sector level sentiment
Bearish decreases for most sectors, while bullish and neutral increases for most sectors.
- The level of optimism among individual investors is highest for IT (57.9%), followed by energy (55.6%) and health care (36.8%). The level of optimism is lowest for consumer discretionary (0.0%), followed by industrial (11.1%) and real estate (22.2%).
- The level of neutral sentiment is highest for financials (66.7%), followed by industrials (61.1%) and health care (52.6%). Neutral sentiment is lowest for real estate and primary sector (both at 33.3%), followed by IT (36.8%).
- The level of pessimism is highest for consumer discretionary (61.1%), followed by real estate (44.4%) and primary sector (33.3%). Pessimism is lowest for energy (0.0%), followed by IT (5.3%) and financials (5.6%).
International stock market sentiment
Neutral and bearish regarding the short-term direction of the Australian market decreased. Simultaneously, bullish increased in this week’s survey. Investor sentiment about the short-term direction of the U.S. market is the same except for bearish.
- Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, increased by 11.6% to 63.2% for Australian stocks and by 3.1% to 57.9% for U.S. stocks.
- Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will stay flat over the next six months, decreased by 5.1 percentage points to 36.8% for Australian stocks and by 3.9 percentage points to 31.6% for U.S. stocks.
- Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, decreased by 6.5 percentage points to 0.0% for Australian stocks and increased by 0.9 percentage points to 10.5% for U.S. stocks.
Personal investment sentiment
Compared to last week, the proportion of investors planning to increase their investment in term deposits has risen. Conversely, the proportion of those expecting a decrease or expressing uncertainty about their term deposit investments has fallen and risen, respectively. The same trend is observed with bonds except in investors who planned to increase the holdings.
- The number of investors anticipating an increase in their investment allocation towards term deposits has risen while towards bonds has fallen compared to last week, with increases of 8.7% to 47.4% for term deposits and decreases of of 3.0% to 42.1% for bonds, respectively.
- The number of investors anticipating a decrease in their investment allocation towards term deposits and bonds has fallen compared to last week, with increases of 18.0% to 36.8% for term deposits and of 8.3% to 36.8% for bonds, respectively.
- The number of investors who are uncertain about whether they will increase or decrease their holdings in term deposits has increased and towards bonds has increased compared to last week, with increases of 9.3% to 15.8% for term deposits and increases of 11.4% to 21.1% for bonds, respectively.
Six-week Retail Investor Sentiment – NZ50 Index
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
- Interestingly, NZ Investors have displayed a greater tendency towards expressing “negative” (bearish) sentiment since the survey’s inception.