Covid-19 may have shaken the markets last year, but many investors took the volatility in stride, a TD survey suggests.
Conducted in March 2021, the survey indicated that 69% of respondents with at least $1 million in investable assets said they didn’t change their investment strategies during the pandemic. Among all respondents, that figure was 61%.
In contrast, more than one-quarter of respondents were aware of their potential to be negatively influenced by feelings: 27% said they make poor investment decisions at least sometimes, mostly because of emotions and worries.
Still, the results were an improvement over a TD survey from 2019. At that time, 47% of investor-respondents said they choose to keep their investments during times of volatility, and those with an advisor were more likely to stick to their wealth plans.
The latest survey also offered insights on the advisor-client relationship.
While one-quarter of respondents preferred investing on their own, seven in 10 preferred investing with an advisor.
For investment information, 48% of respondents said they used their advisors as their main source, and 29% said their advisors were their most trusted source.
Those with at least $1 million in investable assets were more likely to use both advisors and their own independent research (32%), compared to 20% of less affluent respondents.
The survey also suggested that high-net-worth investors receive some serious face time with advisors: 30% of these respondents were more likely to talk to their advisors at least monthly, compared to 19% of those less affluent.
Leger conducted the online survey of 2,508 Canadians between March 7 and 17 using Leger’s online panel, and the results were weighted by age, gender, region and income. The polling industry’s professional body, the Canadian Research Insights Council, says online surveys can’t be assigned a margin of error because they don’t randomly sample the population.