Flash crash fails to deter gold investors
Despite its recent plunge in value, 41.8% of retail investors who invest in gold say it's not changed their investment strategy and they are continuing to buy or hold, according to the latest Halifax Share Dealing Market Tracker.
A further 23.9% of retail investors who invest in the commodity say they have now gone 'risk on' and feel now is time to buy, with just 15.4% expecting it has further to fall and it is time to sell.
Nevertheless, investor attitudes towards gold remain broad and range from it being seen as a speculative commodity (27.7%), to a portfolio diversifier (17.6%), or a useful inflation hedge (16.9%). However, it is not for everyone and 33.5% of investors have not considered gold as an investment.
Of those who do not invest in gold, the main reasons given are that it is too hard to estimate a true value (40.4%), and it does not produce an income or pay dividends (38.4%)
Damian Stansfield, Halifax Share Dealing, comments: "Few investments divide opinion like gold, with many investors viewing it as a volatile, risky or speculative commodity and firm opinions on both sides as to whether this is should be a positive or a negative.
"All investments involve a degree of risk and gold is no different. There's no guarantee you'll get back what you put in and investors should always have a good long think about what level of risk they're comfortable with before they make any investment."
Investors swing towards technology
Investment in the energy & mining sector saw a small bounce back last month with 65% of investors holding shares here. While the percentage of investors holding these stocks remains lower than in April 2012 (66.7%) it remains the most widely held investment sector.
On an annual basis, general industries continued to demonstrate the biggest gains, with 13% more investors holding shares in the sector last month than in April 2012, and 39.9% of investors now owning stocks.
Consumer services (37.3%) and financial services (58.2%) continued to lose investor confidence in April, with the number of investors holding shares here dwindling again.
More than two thirds of investors (68.5%) are reporting an increase in the value of their share portfolio in the last six months compared to 75.5% in January. This number has come down it is still much higher than the same time last year - when less than a third (30.7%) of investors could say they had seen an increase in the previous six months.
Looking at where investors are planning to invest in the next six months, 42.3% say they are looking to invest in energy & mining, with 38.6% looking at financial services (banks, insurance, property services, investment companies etc), and 30.7% looking to invest in general industries (aerospace, defence, electronics, engineering etc).
The outlook for the year ahead remains positive although it is not as strong as it was at the start of the year, with 62.3% of investors anticipating the FTSE will be higher in 12 months time compared 68.8% in January.
Damian Stansfield added: "There are signs of a gradual swing in investors' portfolios away from the concentration in consumer, general and heavy industries of the last few years and into something of a more balanced approach.
"Nevertheless, this will not be an overnight change and for the time being investors remain most bullish over energy & mining and financial services."