I found this in the Investment News publication. There's a curious survey conducted by a group called The Spectrem Group. They measure the investment outlook of Affluent Investors ($500k+ investable assets) and Millionaire Investors ($1mil+ investable assets). Both indices are at their highest levels in the last twelve months. And the Millionaires are more optimistic than the affluent investors. I mean, why shouldn't they be?
So, what to make of this? Well, normally any sort of survey of the masses, I would look at with a contrarian eye. In other words, people surveyed have expressed investment optimism? Consider selling! What's different here? Does the fact that those surveyed have large investment portfolios change things? Maybe it implies that they have had investment success, therefore should be listened to. What it doesn't tell you, however, is how they achieved their wealth. If it was inherited, or due to large salaries (such as entertainment, corporate exec, specialized medicine), then it says nothing about their investment success. I wouldn't exactly run for the hills based on this. In fact, I wouldn't base any action on this, but I thought it was a curious little survey.
Maybe I'll start the "poverty index" and ask poor people what they think of the market. Which one do you think would be a better market indicator?
My guess is that they would all be optimistic too. (They might not know any better than to be optimistic)
It's not like they have anything to lose.
Posted by: Hazzard | March 02, 2006 at 12:58 PM