Wealthy are gloomy but staying the course

Wealthy investors may be pessimistic about the economy, but most didn’t plan on changing their long-term investment approach, according to a new survey. The Affluent & Millionaire Investment Sentiment and Behavior survey, which is conducted every other month by the Rhinebeck, N.Y.-based Phoenix Marketing International, polled 1,225 investors to gauge their approach to managing money. The marketing firm broke down the respondents into two categories: “Mass-affluent” investors, who have $250,000 to $999,000 in investible assets, and “wealthy” investors, who have $1 million or more in investible assets. More than 70%of respondents in each group indicated they were “extremely” pessimistic about the economic outlook for the next three months. Forty-five percent of mass-affluent investors said they had much less confidence in the stock market right now, compared to 40% of wealthy investors. Even with the drop in confidence, nearly 60% of respondents in each group said they did not plan on changing their investment approach. Respondents did, however, plan to cut back on their discretionary spending. Forty-four percent of affluent investors said they would be decreasing discretionary spending, while 40% of wealthy investors said they were planning to cut back. The luxury taking the biggest hit is the restaurant industry: 75% of mass-affluent investors and 63% of wealthy investors, respectively, who said they planned to cut back on spending said they would decrease the amount spent on dining out. The survey was conducted using an online questionnaire during late February.