This collaboration between NZSA and University of Canterbury (UC) Business School is part of our mission to promote a thriving market and to be the voice of investors. A sentiment index will contribute to the understanding of investor behaviour and the overall market and allow you to get first access to the data and make better-informed investment decisions.
Have your say!
Each week, a random selection of NZSA members are sent an email to complete the survey. If you wish to participate in the NZ Investor Sentiment Index Survey anyway, you can click on this link anytime – also contained in each Briefing newsletter. The sentiment survey is conducted weekly from Thursday 12:01am to Wednesday 11:45pm.
This Week’s Results:
This week’s commentary – August 28th, 2025
New Zealand stock market sentiment
Bullish and bearish sentiment of individual investors about the short-term direction of the NZ stock market increased in this week’s survey while neutral decreased.
- Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, increased by 0.2 percentage points to 56.3%.
- Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will essentially stay unchanged over the next six months, decreased by 3.0 percentage points to 25.0%.
- Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, increased by 2.8 percentage points to 18.8%.
New Zealand sector level sentiment
Bullish and neutral increases for most sectors, while bearish decreases for most sectors.
- The level of optimism among individual investors is highest for health care (57.1%), followed by IT (50.0%) and financials (46.2%). Bullish sentiment is lowest for consumer discretionary (21.4%), followed by real estate (28.6%) and energy (35.7%).
- The level of neutral sentiment is highest forprimary sector (57.1%), followed by IT and real estate (both at 50.0%). Neutral sentiment is lowest for health care (35.7%), followed by energy (42.9%) and industrials (46.2%).
- The level of pessimism is highest for consumer discretionary (28.6%), followed by real estate and health care (both at 21.4%). Pessimism is lowest for IT and primary sector (both at 0.0%), followed by health care (7.1%).
International sentiment
Bullish and bearish regarding the short-term direction of the Australian market increased. Simultaneously, neutral decreased in this week’s survey. Investor sentiment about the short-term direction of the U.S. market is the same.
- Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, increased by 4.2 percentage points to 66.7% for Australian stocks and by 18.6 at 53.3% for U.S. stocks.
- Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will stay flat over the next six months,decreased by 9.2% at 20.0% for Australian stocks and by 32.5 percentage points to 6.7% for U.S. stocks.
- Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, increased by 5.0 percentage points to 13.3% for Australian stocks and increased by 13.9 percentage points to 40.0% for U.S. stocks.
New Zealand personal investment sentiment
If the investor were to purchase equity, the proportion of investors planning to increase their investment in small cap shares and funds, increased compared to last week. Conversely, the proportion of those who planning to increase their investment in large cap shares, or nothing, or uncertain about their future investment allocation, decreased.
- The proportion of investors anticipating an increase in their small cap shares increased by 11.7 percertage points to 35.7% this week if they were to purchase equity.
- The proportion of investors anticipating an increase in their large cap shares decreased by 11.4 percentage points to 28.6% this week if they were to purchase equity.
- The proportion of investors anticipating an increase in their funds increased by 1.4 percentage points to 21.4% this week if they were to purchase equity.
- The proportion of investors anticipating no change in their equity allocation decreased by 0.9 percentage points to 7.1% this week.
- The proportion of investors who express uncertainty about their equity allocation decreased by 0.9 percentage points to 7.1% this week.
Historic Data
There have been wide variations since the survey began (January 2020) in Investor Sentiment. The following chart shows:
- the lowest recorded response for each type of sentiment (the lower ‘whisker’)
- the recorded responses between 25th – 75th percentile (the ‘box’)
- the median response score – ie, exactly 50% of scores are above and below this number
- the maximum response (excluding ‘outliers’)
- Interestingly, NZ Investors have displayed a greater tendency towards expressing “negative” (bearish) sentiment since the survey’s inception.