North American Investors Less Confident than Global Counterparts

That was the conclusion of the State Street Investor Confidence Index for September 2010, according to a news release.

The announcement said confidence also decreased slightly among European investors dropping 1.2 points from 98.4 to 97.2. As has been the case for some months, Asian investors bucked the trend, and their confidence rose 4.4 points from 103.5 to 107.9.

“This month’s decline in global investor confidence is somewhat surprising, in light of the meaningful rally in risky assets since the last data release,” said Harvard University professor Ken Froot, who helped create the confidence index, in the news release. “Looking at the numbers more closely, however, we see that the decline is driven largely by North American investors; elsewhere we see a much more upbeat mood. One underlying driver here is the persistent softness observed in the U.S. economy over the summer, which contrasts with the resilience of markets elsewhere such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Sweden.”