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 – November 12th, 2025
New Zealand stock market sentiment
Neutral sentiment of individual investors about the short-term direction of the NZ stock market decreased in this week’s survey, while bullish and bearish increased.
- Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, increased by 7.4 percentage points to 76.2%.
- Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will essentially stay unchanged over the next six months, decreased by 15.5 percentage points to 9.5%.
- Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, increased by 8.0 percentage points to 14.3%.
New Zealand sector level sentiment
Bullish decreases for most sectors, while neutral and bearish increases for most sectors.
- The level of optimism among individual investors is highest for energy (59.1%), followed by real estate (54.6%), and health care (52.4%). Bullish sentiment is lowest for industrials (31.8%), followed by primary sector and consumer discretionary (both at 42.9%).
- The level of neutral sentiment is highest for industrials (59.1%), followed by primary sector (57.1%) and consumer discretionary (47.6%). Neutral sentiment is lowest for IT (27.3%), followed by real estate and energy (both at 31.8%).
- The level of pessimism is highest for IT (22.7%), followed by health care (14.3%) and financials (13.6%). Pessimism is lowest for primary sector (0.0%), followed by energy and industrials (both at 9.1%).
International sentiment
Bullish and bearish regarding the short-term direction of the Australian market decreased. Simultaneously, neutral increased in this week’s survey. Investor sentiment about the short-term direction of the U.S. market is the same except for bearish.
- Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, decreased by 6.2 percentage points to 52.4% for Australian stocks and by 6.0 percentage points to 33.3% for U.S. stocks.
- Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will stay flat over the next six months, increased by 9.2% percentage points to 33.3% for Australian stocks and increased by 3.6 percentage points to 42.9% for U.S. stocks.
- Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, decreased by 3.0 percentage points to 14.3% for Australian stocks and increased by 2.4 percentage points to 42.9% 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 and funds decreased compared to last week. Conversely, the proportion of those who planning to increase their investment in large shares, nothing, or uncertain about their future investment allocation, increased.
- The proportion of investors anticipating an increase in their small cap shares decreased by 10.5 percertage points to 9.5% this week if they were to purchase equity.
- The proportion of investors anticipating an increase in their large cap shares increased by 11.9 percentage points to 28.6% this week if they were to purchase equity.
- The proportion of investors anticipating an increase in their funds decreased by 12.4 percentage points to 14.3% this week if they were to purchase equity.
- The proportion of investors anticipating no change in their equity allocation increased by 3.8 percentage points to 23.8% this week.
- The proportion of investors who express uncertainty about their equity allocation increased by 7.1 percentage points to 23.8% 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.