Globally, investor confidence was slightly up for the month of July, according to State Street’s Investor Confidence Index (ICI)—but North America wasn’t among the optimistic.
The global ICI rose by 0.7 points from June’s reading of 93.3. However, confidence among both North American and European investors ticked downwards. The North American ICI declined 0.6 points from June’s revised reading of 93.7, while the European ICI fell 0.5 points from June’s revised reading of 102.2.
Meanwhile, the Asian ICI was up 0.8 points from June’s revised figure of 90.2.
“The message being sent by institutional investors this month is one of caution,” said Kenneth Froot, a Harvard University professor and co-developer of the index, which measures investor confidence or risk appetite by analyzing the buying and selling patterns of institutional investors.
“The pick-up in equity buying that we noted last month proved short-lived, and flows had turned negative by the end of our July sample. It should be noted that the sample ends just before the latest round of policy pronouncements from European policy makers. As such, it remains to be seen whether these policy moves will have a meaningful impact on risk appetite.”