HNW 04/07- 7

Spectrem research shows, however, that the shocking, February 27^th global stock market sell-off, is just one of the factors leading to this month’s negative outlook among the affluent.  When asked to identify the “most serious threat to achieving household goals,” affluent households did not point to any one factor, as they usually do, but instead indicated a wide array of issues they were concerned about (p.3).  Even factors which have scored traditionally high, did not illicit a reaction this month.

This decline was also reflected as the affluent sounded a general retreat from new investments in the coming month, with all categories—from stocks to bonds, and cash equivalents to mutual funds—dropping, often sharply.  The only investment that witnessed a slight rise was Real Estate (p.2).

This wide-ranging disengagement is alarming, because it indicates a general pessimism and hopelessness about the overall economic and political environment.

Millionaires, who are often more intuitive than other classes of citizen investors, reacted most negatively to recent developments, with their index falling more sharply than the Affluent Index.  Millionaires also expressed more concern about the economy than non-millionaires, choosing to cut back sharply on stock investing.

Surprisingly, non-millionaires showed slightly more interest in stock investing than millionaires. But unsurprisingly higher numbers for Not Investing than millionaires (p.2).

---