More than half (58%) of global investors believe their local stock market will post positive returns in 2015, according to a survey.
The Franklin Templeton Global Investor Sentiment Survey finds Canadian and American investors (64%) are the most optimistic about future local stock market returns, followed by European (62%) and Asia Pacific (56%) investors. Latin American investors are the least likely to expect positive local stock market performance (46%), with the percentage of those in the region who believe the stock market will decline having doubled since last year.
Read: Money managers bullish on equities, alternatives
When it comes to perceptions of past performance, the annual survey has shown that investor perception sometimes diverges from reality. This year’s survey showed that more than half (55%) of investors believe their local stock market was up last year, when in fact only eight (35%) of the markets in the 23 countries surveyed experienced positive performance in 2014. In the U.S., however, most investors’ perceptions were on target with 87% believing the stock market was up last year, when indeed the S&P 500 Index was up 13.7%.
Stocks continue to top the investors’ lists of their most favoured asset classes, with 57% of global respondents expecting stocks to be among the top three performing asset classes in 2015, followed by real estate (52%) and precious metals (39%).
U.S. investors are slightly more optimistic about stocks being among the top three performing asset classes this year compared to 2014 (77% versus 68%), however, optimism for precious metals dropped to 29% from 43% year over year. Real estate remained the second most favoured, with 60% of U.S. investors expecting this asset class to be among the top three best performers in 2015.
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