Australian CFA members less pessimistic than global peers

Australian members of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute are less pessimistic about the global economy than members globally, according to a large survey of members.

Excluding Australia, members from the Asia Pacific were the most pessimistic, according to a survey conducted in November 2011 that received almost 3,000 responses from around 60,000 invitations to complete the survey. Results were weighted according to geography.

The survey aimed to measure the mood of CFA charterholders and members on the outlook for world capital markets and the ongoing struggles associated with the global credit crisis. It found Australian members were more confident about prospects for the global market outlook and their local market's potential for expansion.

Overall only one third of respondents expected the global economy to expand, while almost that many thought the global economy would contract. More than three quarters predicted no improvement in the current sovereign debt crisis.

More than half of respondents expected equities to be outperformed by other asset classes throughout the year, although US respondents were the most optimistic about equities. For equity markets within the Asia Pacific, less than one third of respondents thought equities would be the best-performed asset class.

Respondents largely predicted no improvement in the integrity of global capital markets. There was also a huge jump in the number of respondents who thought improved regulation and oversight of global systemic risk was the most needed regulatory action, up from 23 per cent in the previous survey to 38 per cent.

More than 20 per cent of respondents thought the most serious ethical issue facing global markets in 2012 was the "mis-selling of products by financial advisers", followed by the "disclosure and use of financial derivatives by financial firms" (20 per cent). Only market fraud such as insider trading (22 percent) was deemed more serious.