Equity growing in the first quarter of 2021, even if Italian investors always tend to keep some liquidity in their portfolios.
In fact, the 50% of Italian investors still own more than 10% of liquid positions. Thus emerges from the new report Investor Sentiment di Ubs, the quarterly research that analyzes the confidence of investors and entrepreneurs in the first three months of 2021 which shows that, while continuing to hold high levels of liquidity in their portfolios, investors are considering allocating a larger component of their portfolio into equities .
Italian investors at the beginning of 2021
Looking to Italy, second Paolo Federici, Market Head of UBS Global Wealth Management in Italy, in the last three months “the optimism of Italian investors towards the economy of our country has increased significantly, significantly higher than the average of European investors. And in this context, it is noted that their focus is increasingly on sustainable investments, now perceived as an important and almost essential choice in the allocation of their portfolios. The UBS report also points out that the 49% of investors believe that inflation could rise over the next 3 years. To cope with this eventuality, as many as 47% of investors think it is useful to increase sustainable investments, 43% believe it is useful to add an equity component to the portfolio while 34% think it is useful to invest in real estate.
Trust for the stock market in the short term (in the next 6 months) it is increasing compared to the last quarter of 2020. In fact, 75% of Italian investors are optimistic (in the last quarter of 2020 confident investors were 70%). Furthermore, more than half of Italian investors plan to change their portfolio in the next 6 months, while 40% plan to keep it unchanged and only 10% to reduce their equity exposure.
The greatest investment opportunities
What are they, according to the iItalian investors, the greatest investment opportunities? Well, according to 78% of investors, those companies that have experienced technological development, according to 77% sustainable investments, while 72% believe that shares represent an effective tool to diversify the portfolio during the recovery. Optimism towards the Italian economy is growing with 83% of Italian investors saying they are confident in this respect (in Q4 2020, 71% were optimistic investors). However, i49% of investors are still worried about the spread of Covid-19, while as many as 48% identify climate change as a concern and finally 45% are concerned about a possible tax increase.