FYI | Apr 23 2008
By Chris Shaw
As evidence any strong recovery in global equity markets remains some way off specialist research house State Street Global Markets has released its Investor Confidence Index for April showing a drop from the levels of March.
The index measures investor confidence by examining trends in institutional investor buying and selling orders. Co-developer of the index Professor Ken Froot from Harvard suggests the fall in April back to the levels of February shows while investors see some value in risky assets at current levels nervousness remains.
Global confidence as measured by the index fell 4.4 points to a reading of 72.8 points but it was European investors who led the decline, as confidence in that region fell to 76.8 points from 87.7 points previously, with investors showing a preference for finance and consumer discretionary stocks favoured over technology and materials exposures.
In America the fall in sentiment was less pronounced as the index declined a more modest 4.9 points to 78.3 points, while Asian investors continue to express confidence in the outlook for their region as despite the recent falls in the Shanghai stock market the region’s reading was down only slightly to 86.2 points from 87.9 points previously.