What are consumer perceptions of technology and ethical investing?

What determines whether a consumer makes ethical considerations when investing?

Is there likely to be future demand for ethical and technical investment funds?

In October 2001, Mintel published its annual Shareholding report. The report highlighted the fact that, in the previous year, trading conditions had worsened and that the UK equity market had become increasingly volatile. For much of the summer, stockmarket performance continued to deteriorate on the back of poor earnings figures, but September saw a dreadful collapse in consumer confidence. Even before the terrorist atrocities in the US on 11 September, London's FTSE index was down almost 6% for the month. Then the index plunged to a low point of just 4,433.7 on September 21. This marked a 36.6% retreat since the heady heights of almost 7,000 were reached at the end of the last Millennium, confirming that investors were now operating in a bear market.

What are consumer perceptions of technology and ethical investing?

What determines whether a consumer makes ethical considerations when investing?

Is there likely to be future demand for ethical and technical investment funds?

In October 2001, Mintel published its annual Shareholding report. The report highlighted the fact that, in the previous year, trading conditions had worsened and that the UK equity market had become increasingly volatile. For much of the summer, stockmarket performance continued to deteriorate on the back of poor earnings figures, but September saw a dreadful collapse in consumer confidence. Even before the terrorist atrocities in the US on 11 September, London's FTSE index was down almost 6% for the month. Then the index plunged to a low point of just 4,433.7 on September 21. This marked a 36.6% retreat since the heady heights of almost 7,000 were reached at the end of the last Millennium, confirming that investors were now operating in a bear market.

In the third quarter of 2001, stockmarkets' volatility emanated from an unholy mixture of terrorism and threat of global recession; the latter which had caused the stockmarkets' fragility for much of 2001 as profit warnings proliferated. Investors, worldwide, saw the value of their portfolios fall dramatically, with many stocks becoming members of the 90% club - declining by that amount from their peaks. For many the impact of 11 September will have been the final straw. The main reason why people invest in stocks and shares and equity-related funds is that they want to see their savings grow. Equity investments are also widely considered to be an attractive alternative to other types of investment because they give the investor a chance to get a better return (in terms of capital and dividend growth) than from a bank or building deposit account. However, in the present climate, economic uncertainty and escalating military action are causing many private investors to withdraw from the stock market.

In the context of the current market and trading conditions, this report examines consumer investment behaviour specifically with regard to two particular types of investment category, namely technology and socially responsible funds. In the case of the latter, corporate social responsibly has become an increasingly key issue for many investors. Also, many of the more speculative investors had been attracted to the technology funds, lured by opportunities to make sizeable returns. Accordingly, in recent years these two sectors attracted considerable attention from the media and investment companies and have generated a great deal of interest from investors.

Other Mintel reports of relevance include:

- ISAs, Finance Intelligence, May 2001

- Interactive Investing, Finance Intelligence, April 2001

- New Technology and Financial Services, Finance Intelligence, December 2000

- Wealth Management, Finance Intelligence, December 2000.

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