October 29th ICBC released the "ICBC Investment & Wealth Management Index" for the third quarter 2009 which scores 5 points higher than last quarter to 113. The surge shows the upturn since the first quarter 2009 and the continual thrust of Chinese urban residents to amass fortune, approaching to a relatively strong range.
In the sub-indexes of "ICBC Investment & Wealth Management Index", "Macro Environment Confidence Index" shores up steadily from 114 in the second quarter to 122 points this quarter, a mark of rapid ascent of city folks' confidence on the overall economic development and investment opportunities. "Living Expectation Index" also moves up from 116 points in the second quarter to 124 points this quarter.
The rise is a clear indication that there is strong expectation among the city folks on their future incomes and job prospects. "Investment Wish Index" edges up slightly, from 95 to 97 points, implying that the city folks start to be more aggressive in putting more time and money to invest, and wish to invest more.
Industry analysts point out that China government's continued approach in the proactive fiscal policy and moderate liberal monetary policy since the third quarter has pushed China economy further into positive territory despite some uncertainties. Simmering market expectations jack up the investment optimism among investment entities of all fields and give fresh fillip to urban dwellers in their investments. The result of "ICBC Investment & Wealth Management Index" reflects relatively accurately the trend of the nowadays urbanites in the country in their wealth accumulation plans.
More interesting findings can be watched from this round of ICBC index. Proportions of investment products held by urban dwellers are overall stable but vary largely when it comes to those held by different income groups. Amongst, high-income groups hold more gold, from 8% in the second quarter to 14%, or an increase of 6 percentage points.
Stocks they held rise from 45% to 48%. Their investments in real estates go up a paucity of 1 percentage point to 25%. The result denotes the increased investment by high-income groups in gold, stocks and real estates. For mid-income groups, the ratio of dividend-type insurance, gold and bond they held move up 1 percentage point.
Percentages of stock and domestic funds they held and the ratio of their investments in real estates both slide 3 percentage points. Looking at the changes of the trend in buying preferences, urban dwellers stick to buy most of their products, but a big jump in their likeness to buy bond from 5% in the second quarter to 8%.
Those who wish to buy dividend-type insurance leap from 12% to 13%. Among them, high-income groups who prefer to buy bond, stocks and bank investment products move up from 6%, 26% and 10% in the second quarter to 12%, 31% and14% respectively. There is also a slight increase of high-income groups who wish to buy dividend-type insurance and domestic funds.
According to ICBC spokesperson from the department concerned, "ICBC Investment & Wealth Management Index" is an index jointly compiled by ICBC and The Gallup Organization, a consultancy firm known throughout the world. The index measures the confidence of urban dwellers on the macro environment and investment desires with respect to living expectation.
Areas of survey for compiling the index cover 16 cities of varying economic development standards. In each round of index, these sample cities are rotated in a certain ratio. ICBC launched the second to seventh round of "ICBC Investment & Wealth Management Index" since the first round in the first quarter, 2007, successively in the calendar order of the 4th quarter 2007, 1st, 3rd and 4th quarter of 2008, 1st and 2nd quarter of 2009.
The announcement of this 8th round of index here is based on the study result of the third quarter this year. ICBC hopes the launch of such index can help customers to understand better the philosophy how to accumulate wealth and invest rationally. Besides, the index in another way offers information to wealth management sectors on the investment preferences and behaviors of the urban dwellers.
The ICBC spokesperson further related that ICBC will continue to track, measure the investment preferences of the urban dwellers and announce the result in an index. This will serve as a good reference to the development of wealth management market in the country.
