Romanian investors are worried by the recession prospects of the local and global economies but less concerned about their standard of living and job prospects, reveals the latest eToro Retail Investors Beat survey. The proximity of the war in Ukraine and the inflation are also less worrisome than three months ago.
The number one concern of Romanian investors for the next three months is the possible recession of the local economy (31%), followed by the state of the global economy (16%), high interest rates (11%) and inflation (9%), writes eToro analyst for Romania, Bogdan Maioreanu.
It is quite a change from last quarter when the main threat for investors’ portfolios was inflation followed by an international conflict. The annual inflation reached 10.3% in Romania, a deceleration anticipated by the investors that are seeing less concern brought by this.
Despite the slowdown in inflation still 75% of the Romanian investors answered that they are not confident in the Romanian economy. However, a similar percentage of investors are confident about their job security, while 65% are confident about their income and standards of life. For the latter it is a steep decrease from more than three quarters at the end of March 2023. When it comes to their portfolios, 80% of Romanian investors polled in the eToro survey remain confident in their investments. This level of confidence is also confirmed by the only 9% of the polled investors who declared that they reduced their portfolios over the last three months. More than half maintained the same amount and 36% even increased their investments.
For the remainder of 2023, despite the increase in share prices and the S&P 500 index signaling the start of a Bull market, only 33% of the investors declared that this year will increase their portfolios by buying more assets, 8% will decrease them by selling assets and 52% will keep their portfolio at the same value.
According to the eToro Retail Investor Beat survey, most of the individual Romanian investors (55%) say that their goal for their investments is to supplement income followed by helping them to achieve financial independence (49%) and providing long term security (48%). For 22% the goal is retirement related, investments being destined to supplement the pension, while another 11% invest in order to be able to retire early. Only 3% of Romanian investors are investing for fun. For more than half of the investors it is too early to say if they are on track to achieve their goals, but for almost 40% this is a certitude.
The quarterly poll of individual investors in 13 countries – not necessarily with accounts on the eToro platform – continues to show a gender disparity in Romania, with 67% of investors being male and 33% female, the same as three months ago. Romania has the lowest percentage of female investors out of the countries that participated in the poll. The global average is 44%, closer to us being the Czechs with 36%, Danes with 39%, Germans with 40% and Polish with 42% female investors. The largest percentage of female investors are in the United States and Australia with 51% closer to the actual demography of the countries.
Bogdan Maioreanu, eToro analyst and markets commentator, has over 20 years of experience in financial services and investments and a strong background in journalism. He held different Corporate Banking management positions in both Raiffeisen Bank and OTP Bank, before moving to business consultancy roles working for IBM Romania among others. Bogdan is an Executive MBA from Asebuss and Washington University.
