Podcast Center
Video Center
Webcasts
Resource Center
Events
August 11, 2013 at 11:09 PM
Just 11 percent of investors scored an ‘A’ on an eight-question investment literacy quiz, according to a new survey.
John Hancock discloses this finding in an Investor Sentiment Survey that polled 1,078 investors about their views of the current economic climate and what represents a good or bad investment given market conditions. Conducted by independent research firm Greenwald & Associates, the poll also asked consumers about their confidence in reaching key financial goals and likelihood of purchasing financial products and services.
One in five of the investors surveyed (20 percent) scored high enough to earn a ‘B’ in the investor literacy quiz, but nearly half earned a failing grade, with 22 percent receiving a ‘D’ and 23 percent receiving an ‘F,’ John Hancock reports.
Investors were able to select correct answers to questions about financial concepts or product definitions, but most exhibited significant knowledge gaps. When it came to correctly answering a question about an optimal retirement savings strategy, knowledge declined further, with only 37 percent able to choose the correct answer.
Almost all investors surveyed (94 percent) properly identified the definition of asset allocation as: “A method of assigning your financial contributions to different risk classes of investments.” Dollar cost-averaging was also widely understood (85 percent) as: “When you purchase the same dollar amount of investments each month so when share prices are low you get more shares, and when share prices are high you get fewer shares.”
