KEY POINTS:
Private, richer New Zealand investors recorded a 35 per cent drop in confidence during the last quarter of 2008, a new survey shows.
Global financial services group ING said its quarterly investor sentiment dashboard survey put the investor sentiment index in this country at 62 out of 200, down from 96 in the third quarter.
With the latest score, New Zealand dropped from being the fourth most confident market in the Asia-Pacific region, to being eighth out of 13.
ING New Zealand investor services manager Steven Giannoulis said many investors in this country had taken a more cautious and conservative approach to investment in the latest quarter, saying they had felt the impact of the global credit crunch.
"Overall, New Zealand investors say they are continuing to hold on to cash while slowly moving away from investing in stocks and local property and many are clearly still undecided as to the best response to the downturn in local and global markets," he said.
The introduction of the government deposit guarantee scheme could also be having an effect.
A third of the New Zealand investors thought the new National-led Government would have a favourable impact on their investments, almost double the figure recorded in the previous quarter before the election.
Despite that, 56 per cent of investors considered the new Government would have no impact on their investments.
Of the investors surveyed, 45 per cent expected the general economic situation to worsen in the first quarter of 2009, with 38 per cent expecting their personal economic situation would continue to worsen during the quarter.
- NZPA
