More than 45% of European high net worth individuals (HNWI) consider lack of global growth to be the biggest investment concern in 2013, according to a study by JP Morgan Private Bank.
The study was conducted as part of the private bank’s recent Investment Insights series, held in 16 cities across Europe, with more than 1,000 high net worth investors.
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The survey, which took place before the current crisis in Cyprus, revealed other concerns were political (23%), geopolitical unrest (15%), monetary policy mistakes (11%) and inflation (4%) this year.
However, when asked which asset class will outperform over the next 12 months, 60% asserted equities will outperform, following on the strong performance of fixed income markets in 2012.
The remaining 40% were split between private equity (19%), commodities (10%) and hedge funds (9%). High Net Worth investors in Spain, France, Italy and Switzerland were found to have the most optimistic outlook towards equity markets, with 72%, 70%, 59% and 57%, respectively.
Supporting the view that equities will be the outperforming asset class of 2013, more than 35% said they had increased their exposure to European equities in the last six months, and more than 60% said they seek to increase their allocation to equities in 2013.
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By GlobalDataIn particular, investors based in the UK, Switzerland and Italy showed the most enthusiasm towards boosting asset allocation in equities.
Despite the reduction of tail risk in Europe and signs of recovery in the US, 28% of responses believed emerging market equities will be the best performers in the next 12 months while 24% agreed the US will be a top performing market.
This was followed by Asia ex-Japan at 18%. Further down the rankings, 14% of those surveyed believed the European periphery will perform better than the European core (10%).
Japan was least favored at 6%.
JP Morgan Private Bank chief investment strategist, Cesar Perez, said: "We believe 2013 will be led much more by fundamentals than political, event or tail risk. Global growth is likely to improve in the second half of the year, though we expect to remain below trend at around plus 3%."
"Europe is far from being "fixed," but better financial conditions are already benefitting the global economy." Perez said.
