Just over two-thirds of US investors (68%) expect the domestic economy to improve over the next year, according to a survey conducted by Monex Group unit TradeStation.
The company has announced the results of the "Monex Global Retail Investor Survey, Vol. 12," revealing that a solid majority of US investors see the American economy gradually gaining strength throughout the remainder of 2014.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Access deeper industry intelligence
Experience unmatched clarity with a single platform that combines unique data, AI, and human expertise.
However, virtually all of these investors (64%) expect that improvement to be "slight," with just 4% foreseeing "rapid" improvement. Only 18% predict no change in the economy, and an even smaller percentage (14%) anticipate further deterioration in economic conditions.
Investors’ perception of the global equities markets remained relatively upbeat, with 46% predicting that global stocks will rise in the second quarter of 2014, down from 54% in the December 2013 quarterly survey but up from just 30% predicting such an increase as recently as September 2013.
Only one in four survey respondents (26%) sees global equities markets declining in 2014, a figure unchanged from the December 2013 survey.
US investors’ cautious optimism is reflected in generally positive expectations for their own trading volume over the next 12 months. Ninety-six percent of respondents expect their trading volume to increase or stay the same over the next year; the already small percentage of investors expecting to trade less over the coming year declined to just 4% from 9% in December 2013.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataInvestors expect most of the action to be in the US equities markets – 61% of TradeStation customers expect U.S. stocks to outperform stocks in Europe/UK, Asia (excluding Japan) and Japan.
Seventy percent of investors consider stocks to be an attractive investment in 2014, and 68% are similarly positive on the outlook for ETFs. Investors looking for trading opportunities may want to give options and futures a closer look, as a remarkable 85% of TradeStation clients surveyed pointed to these assets in particular as attractive investments for 2014.
Salomon Sredni, CEO of TradeStation Group and COO of Monex Group, said: "This quarter’s results suggest that despite an abundance of caution, investors see real opportunities in markets such as equities, options and futures. With the vast majority of TradeStation clients saying they expect to maintain or increase their trading volume in 2014, our job is to continually improve the tools and resources we offer so that they can take advantage of these opportunities."
Monex has been conducting its monthly retail investor survey with its Japanese clients since October 2009. The "Monex Global Retail Investor Survey," covering retail clients in Japan, Hong Kong and the US, was launched in June 2011 and is conducted on a quarterly basis. Please refer to the full report for complete results.
Other key findings of the survey include:
- TradeStation customers remain less than bullish on prospects for the U.S. dollar, with 41% expecting the dollar to outperform the other major currencies in the next three months. That figure is unchanged from the December 2013 survey but down from 51% in September 2013.
- The November 2014 mid-term elections are unlikely to have any discernible influence on how U.S. investors approach the markets. Sixty percent of respondents said the mid-terms will have little or no impact on their investing, while fewer than one in ten investors (9%) expect the elections to have a major impact on their investing.
- Investors see China’s influence on the global economic stage as cooling but still significant. Thirty-six percent of respondents cited China as the economic area outside their own that would experience the strongest GDP growth over the next 12 months; while that figure is down from 46% in the December 2013 survey, it is still twice as large as the figure for runners-up the U.S. and U.K./EU, tied at 16%.
The Monex Global Retail Investor Survey measures customer sentiment based upon answers to specific questions received from a random sampling of customers of Monex, Inc., TradeStation Securities, Inc., IBFX, Inc., and Monex Boom Securities (H.K.) Ltd. Details of the methodology used to conduct the survey are available upon request. Accuracy and completeness of the data derived from the survey is not guaranteed.
