Institutional investor confidence up in March

Institutional investor confidence appears to be on the rise almost everywhere except North America, according to the latest State Street Investor Confidence Index covering March, this year.

The index results, released this week, revealed that the global Investor Confidence Index has risen 4.2 points to 95.4 with European investor confidence up 11.9 points to 95 while Asian confidence also rose by a little under five points to 109.6 points

However this compared to North American confidence, which declined 0.3 points to 91.6.

Commenting on the index, State Street’s Ken Froot said that in the US, significant skepticism remained given the strong run in stocks year-to-date.

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“Exiting historically low rates is a policy withdrawal investors have not experienced before; therefore it is natural that such an extreme policy is being questioned,” Froot said.

Looking at the improvement in the European index, State Street Associates managing director and head of investor Behaviour research, Rajeev Bhargava attributed it to an easing of political tensions in the region post the Dutch elections, as well as sustained economic momentum on the back of a series of positive economic surprises.

He said this seemed to have contributed to the more constructive tone from investors.