A SENTIMENT SURVEY across customers of RaboDirect who have investment accounts shows an upswing of confidence in the financial outlook for the country.

This infographic shows how the Investor Barometer – which the bank began monitoring in April 2010 – has a majority of investors “optimistic about the global economy”. A lower percentage (52 per cent vs 73 per cent on the global outlook) have confidence in how the Irish economy and stocks will performs over the next three months:

However, while 73 per cent is an upswing from 64 per cent who were confident in the global scene when surveyed in January this year, confidence has dropped slightly in how investors see the Irish economy performing over the next three months. (It was 55 per cent in January and is 52 per cent now.)

RaboDirect believes that the positive sentiment “is reflected in investors’ preferred asset classes with 64 per cent indicating a preference for equities (Jan 2013: 51 per cent) while 19 per cent preferred cash (Jan 2013: 25 per cent); 12 per cent preferred bonds (Jan 2013: 20 per cent) and 5 per cent preferred property (Jan 2013: 3 per cent).

Emerging markets and the US are top investor choices, followed by Europe and Asia. The investors referred to are individual investors, rather than corporate investors.

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