Top Concerns for Investors

The trade war is on everyone’s minds, especially investors. According to a survey from SophisticatedInvestor.com, the U.S.-China Trade War is the top geopolitical or economic event investors are worried about, with 45.8% if investors citing it as their top concern. The trade wars are twice as important as the national debt and significantly higher than interest rate cuts from the Fed. Other factors of concern to investors include tensions in the Persian Gulf.

When demographic filters were applied to the results factoring specifically 35 to 44 years old, the percentage of investors concerned the most about the trade war increased to 47.6%, and even further to 48.2% with males of that age bracket.

“The fact that nearly half of all respondents to the survey sighted the US-China trade war as the primary concern for the direct effects on investment portfolios, comes as little surprise,” SophisticatedInvestor.com notes. “Over the past couple of weeks, financial markets have endured a roller coaster ride specifically attributed to uncertainties surrounding the escalating trade war between the two countries. The general consensus amongst analysts is the market volatility will continue until the trade war ceases between the US and China.”

Just 11% of respondents stated that the Fed’s interest rate cuts worried them most when it came to the health of their investment portfolio, while 8.4% of respondents indicated that they worried most about the effects of the escalating tensions pertaining to the Hong Kong protests on the health of their investment portfolio. This number jumped to 9.5% when demographic filters were applied specifically to those 65.

Another concern is increasing tensions in the Persian Gulf between Iran and Britain. Around 4.8% of investors surveyed cited  Persian Gulf tensions as a concern for their portfolios, and this percentage leaps to 8.7% when demographic filters are applied to the survey results, factoring specifically males between 55 and 64.