Australian investors' fear levels have fallen to the lowest levels since the global financial crisis, but the impact on capital gain expectations has been modest, new research reveals.
The Investment Trends 2014 First Half Australia Online Broking Report, found that while some investors were still worried about a global crash, the strong performance of the equity market had improved investor sentiment.
Despite this, online share investor numbers remained static in the year to June 2014, with 585,000 making at least share trade in that time.
The report showed that inflows of new investors were "exactly offset" by an increase in the number of people falling dormant over the 12 month period.
The research also found that almost three out of every five online investors had an account with CommSec, with it being the primary online broker for 44 per cent on investors.
A quarter of investors reported holding accounts with E*TRADE, with Westpac Online Investing (13 per cent), nabtrade (11 per cent), CMC Markets Stockbroking (seven per cent) and Bell Direct (seven per cent) rounding out the top six primary online brokerages for Australian investors.
The report revealed that 53 per cent of Australian investors traded using a mobile platform, which was described as "moderate" in comparison to Singapore (76 per cent) and the US (60 per cent). However a further 13 per cent of Aussie online shareholders said they planned to start using smartphones and/or tablets platforms in the next 12 months, with the majority revealing they would be more likely to monitor their holdings on a mobile platform than buy and sell shares.
For those using mobile platforms, CommSec secured the highest average satisfaction score for its mobile trading platform, the report said.
