Chicago, IL, May 2, 2007--Spectrem Group announced today that its Spectrem Millionaire Investor Index (SMII)(TM) advanced 10 points in April to 15, recording its third-biggest monthly advance ever.
The index's strong gain followed a 14-point decline in March, which represented the largest one-month drop since the index's inception in February 2004. The millionaire index's April advance returned it to mildly bullish territory, where the index had been for the six months prior to the historic March decline, which sent it to neutral terrain.
Meanwhile, the Spectrem Affluent Investor Index, which measures the investment outlook of households with $500,000 or more in investable assets, posted an April advance of 6 points to 7. Like the millionaires, the affluent index's April gain came on the heels of a record March decline. However, the affluent index remained neutral despite the advance.
"Millionaires' investment optimism returned almost as dramatically in April as it eroded the month before. Mirroring the bullishness of equity markets in the U.S. and elsewhere, the millionaire index recorded its
third-biggest gain ever, returning from one month in neutral territory to the mildly bullish ranks. The broader affluent index also regained much of its record March losses. Altogether, this strength suggests that concerns
about the first-quarter stock market decline, including the global sell-off of late February, have become little more than a memory for the nation's wealthiest investors," said George H. Walper, Jr., President of Spectrem
Group.
In response to an open-ended question about the factor most impacting their investment plans, affluent investors in April cited: stock market conditions (13%), the economic environment (11%), retirement (6%), household cash flow (5%), housing and real estate (5%), household income (4%), and jobs and job security (2%). When this same question was last asked in January 2007, the top responses were also stock market conditions (20%), the economic environment (9%) and retirement (9%).
Consistent with affluent investors, millionaires in April were primarily concerned with stock market conditions (16%) in terms of their investment plans. Next for millionaires was the economic environment (11%).
