New Age investor poll shows no U.S. Stock crash yet

New Age investor poll shows no U.S. Stock crash yet
Richard Hubbard

HONG KONG, MAY 16: US stock market dynamicscan best be understood by a look at American demographics and the attitudes of individual investors rather than economics, a well known political pollster, Dick Morris, said on Tuesday.

Morris, best known as a senior political strategist for US President Bill Clinton and now founder of Internet survey group vote.com, turned his skills to the financial markets on behalf of Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia (CLSA).

He argues that just as politicians have come to rely on polls to find out how the electorate will vote, investor polls will become a new guide to the direction of financial markets. This is because of the increasing dominance in the US stock markets of baby boomers actively managing their own investment portfolios.

"The entire premise of market analysis at the moment is that you should study the economy and then you'll figure out what people's investment habits will be," Morris said. "The premise of this (investor survey) is that if you study the investor's needs, study their lives, study their priorities, study what they want to achieve, you'll have a whole lot better view of what they are going to do with their money than (from) what the economy is doing," he said.