Investor confidence up in April

Oksana Patron

28 April 2023

The Global Investor Confidence Index (ICI) increased to 83.5 in April, up 2.2 points from March’s revised reading of 81.3, but it remained mixed across regions.

The North American ICI rose 1.6 points to 75.5, while the European ICI fell 6.4 points to 111.2 and the Asian ICI dropped 2.6 points to 89.3.

Institutional investors were cautious in April despite relative stability in the US banking sector and the North America ICI maintained the weakest regional reading as investors continued to navigate through banking stress and Fed tightening.

“In contrast, despite a drop in April, the 112.2 ICI reading for Europe remained at near 2-year highs, with this region signalling the strongest level of risk taking,” Marvin Loh, senior global macro strategist at State Street Global Markets, said.

“The April numbers demonstrate a degree of comfort that U.S. bank depositor stress will remain contained and not contribute to broader systemic risk. Nonetheless, sentiment in Asia slipped again, falling 2.6 to 89.3 on fading optimism of widespread gains from the reopening of the Chinese economy.”

The index was developed at State Street Associates, State Street Global Markets research and advisory services business and it measures investor confidence or risk appetite quantitatively by analysing the actual buying and selling patterns of institutional investors, with a reading of 100 being neutral and indicating the level at which investors are neither increasing nor decreasing their long-term allocations to risky assets.