Stocks, real estate top investment choices among rich Asians: report
2011/10/13 21:56:00
Taipei, Oct. 13 (CNA)
Stocks and real estate remained the top investment choices among millionaires in the Asia Pacific region last year, according to a report released Thursday.
In 2010, real estate accounted for 27 percent of the assets held by the wealthy in Asia, up from 26 percent in 2009, the 2011 Asia-Pacific Wealth Report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini said. Worldwide, the figure stood at 19 percent, it said.
The report showed that 26 percent of the investments by Asia's rich in 2010 was in stocks, a drop of 1 percent from a year earlier. The percentage of cash investments continued to show a decline, which was in line with the global trend, the report said.
In Taiwan, millionaires favored stocks (32 percent) over real estate (25 percent), while 22 percent of their investments were in fixed income and 17 percent in cash.
Stocks accounted for a greater proportion of the investments by the rich in China, India and South Korea, the report stated. Japanese millionaires, however, showed a preference for cash and fixed income.
Geographically, wealthy Asians mostly invested in the region, but their assets in North America rose year-on-year from 19 percent to 25 percent and dropped from 64 percent to 57 percent in the Asia Pacific.
Investments in real estate by wealthy Asians are forecast to drop to 20 percent in 2012 due to concerns over assets bubbles resulting from soaring property prices in the region, said Lee Po-lin, an executive at Merrill Lynch's Taiwan branch.
Their percentage of stock and fixed income investments in that period are predicted to jump to 31 percent and 26 percent, respectively. (By Luo Hsiu-wen and Kendra Lin) enditem/ pc
Source: http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?Type=aECO&ID=201110130035
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