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May 26, 2020 at 09:48 AM
The coronavirus pandemic has shed unwelcome light on many aspects of American life. Now a new survey from MagnifyMoney reveals another one.
More than half of respondents regretted a past investment decision that came to light during the crisis, including 92% of arguably less-experienced Gen Z investors and 79% of Gen Xers.
In comparison, only 33% of baby boomers and 24% of older investors said they had made a mistake in their investments.
Qualtrics conducted the online survey from April 28 to May 1 among 2,008 Americans 18 and older, including 1,183 investors and 866 non-investors.
Mistakes Happen
The mistakes investors owned up to were not particularly surprising; they included the kinds of decisions advisors have long inveighed against.
Twenty-three percent of respondents — 29% of Gen X and 27% of millennials — regretted lack of portfolio diversification. Thirty percent of men in the survey did so, too, compared with 13% of women.
Nineteen percent of participants said they had taken on risky investments and regretted it. Most sorry were about a third of Gen Z respondents and a quarter of Gen Xers.
The report noted that high-risk investments included IPOs, structured products and venture capital trusts. Trying to time the market for maximum returns — considered a no-no by many experts — is also risky, it said.
A third investment mistake 13% of respondents and 27% of Gen Z owned up to was keeping all of their savings in the stock market. Considerably fewer investors from other generations said they had done this.
Mistakes have consequences. Survey participants with investment accounts estimated their stock market losses were about $24,400 on average since the coronavirus outbreak intensified in March.
