In its report titled 2014 First Half Australia Online Broking Report which surveyed 12,398 online retail investors between 28 April and 22 June 2012, found whilst concern levels have fallen investors are not yet bullish.
“With the strong performance of the equity market, investor concern levels have fallen to their lowest level observed since the GFC. But the impact on capital gain expectations – historically closely tied to market performance – has been modest,” the report said.
“This has huge implications because market return expectations are a key predictor and driver of investment activity,” it said.
“Some investors were still worries about a global crash, the possible impact of current world events and government regulation changes or interest rates,” the report added.
The report also found “lukewarm” sentiment of the market saw online share investors remain stagnant at 585,000 Australians who placed at least one online share trade in the 12 months to June 2014.
“The inflows of new investors continued to track upwards, increasing for the third consecutive six-month period to reach 46,000,” the report said.
“However new/returning traders were exactly offset by an increase in the number of people falling dormant,” it said.
“The largest barriers to trading for former online investors were a lack of funds/capital, lack of time to pick stocks and a lack of knowledge/understanding,” it added.
