Investment advisers in Canada are optimistic about stock performance over 2014’s first quarter, according to an adviser sentiment survey published by Horizons ETFs Management Canada January 29.
In particular, almost three-quarters (74%) of advisers expressed optimism about stocks on both the S&P 500 and the S&P/TSX 60 indeces – up from 70% and 68%, respectively, in 2013’s fourth quarter.
“We are seeing almost unprecedented levels of bullishness on large-cap stocks across the board,” said Horizons ETFs president Howard Atkinson.
“Canadian stocks lagged U.S. stock returns over the last year, and investors may be expecting Canadian stocks to rally on a relative performance basis to close the gap on the U.S.”
These bullish sentiments did not hold across all asset classes, however.
Only 12% of those surveyed were optimistic about the performance of the Canadian dollar relative to the American greenback.
“There has been a lot of media coverage of negative outlooks for the Canadian dollar, so this is not surprising,” said Atkinson.
“For this reason, we’ve also seen a preference … for non-hedged U.S. equity – investors want to get direct exposure to the U.S. dollar as the value of the Loonie falls.”
Advisers continue to be bearish on precious metals. Only 32% were optimistic about the performance of gold bullion, and 35% on silver bullion.
