Investor sentiment in Taiwan showed a positive uptick in the first quarter of the year compared with the previous quarter, while the rest of Asia saw sentiment turn more bearish, an ING Asia Pacific survey showed yesterday.
Data collected from 13 Asian countries between February and last month also showed that Taiwanese investors were the most optimistic about second-quarter economic and investment prospects in the region, whereas investors in other Asian countries were still concerned about the global credit crunch and the US economic slowdown.
“It’s clear there’s optimism about the economy and about the outcome of the legislative and presidential elections,” Steven Billiet, CEO of ING Securities Investment Trust (Taiwan) Ltd (ING 投信) wrote in a statement released yesterday. “This optimistic view should continue well into the second quarter, following the inauguration of the new president, when we expect to see policies which will benefit the economy.”
The ING Investor Dashboard survey showed a rise in Taiwanese investment sentiment to 105 in the first quarter from 83 in the previous quarter — the largest improvement in sentiment in Asia.
In comparison, the pan-Asia sentiment index of the survey fell to 125 points in the first quarter from 135 points in the fourth quarter of last year.
“It is not surprising to find that investor sentiment has fallen in Asia over the last two quarters,” Billiet said, hinting that Asia would not be insulated from the global market uncertainty.
The world’s emerging and developed equity markets were hit hard in the first quarter, losing 10.56 percent and 8.95 percent respectively, according to data compiled by Standard & Poor’s (S&P), the world’s leading index provider.
During the same period, Taiwan’s stock market rose 7.02 percent, S&P said in a quarterly report on Friday.
In Asia, Hong Kong was among the hardest hit developed equity markets in the first quarter, dropping 18.07 percent, while China was among the worst performers with the market plunging 24.65 percent, S&P data showed.
The ING survey showed that Taiwanese investors were generally more optimistic about the nation’s economic growth prospects and personal investment returns. But what was unusual was that Taiwanese were generally less concerned about the impact of the US subprime mortgage crisis compared with other Asian investors.
During the first three months, about 58 percent of Taiwanese respondents said they were worried about the subprime problem, down from 70 percent in the previous quarter, the survey showed.
An increasing number of Taiwanese investors also sought professional investment advice, instead of relying on personal judgment, especially for recommendations on overseas investment, the survey showed.
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