Investors still lack the courage to invest in Romanian equity funds

The last two years of crisis have prompted equity funds, considered to be the riskiest mutual funds, to be increasingly cautious with their stock exchange investments, a strategy explained by the fact that the pressure on yields is no longer significant and investors still lack the courage to take risks.

The over 5.2 billion-RON (1.21 billion-euro) assets of mutual funds are over 70% invested in fixed-income instruments such as bonds and bank deposits, while overall exposure to equity amounts to just 6.4% of the assets, i.e. 337 million RON (80 million euros), according to data supplied by the Association of Fund Managers at the end of September.

The figures show mutual funds could be outranked by pension funds over the coming months, which have 300 million RON invested in equity, although they are considered to be much more conservative.
The value of equity exposure can also be interpreted as a barometer measuring the sentiment of investors holding their savings in mutual funds. A value of 6% could indicate the fact that investors have little hope that the equity market will rebound and prefer to keep their money in safer assets such as deposits and bonds.

News source: ZF English link: article