Investors remain very confident of achieving goals

Resounding 94% say they expect to reach 2015 targets; domestic market seen as 'best option'

Individual Chinese investors have become among the most optimistic globally when it comes to achieving their investment goals, according to a survey by Franklin Templeton Investments, the global investment management company.

The study, conducted between Feb 12 and March 2 this year, involved 500 respondents from China aged between 25 and 65 who have a minimum of 100,000 yuan ($16,100) to invest.

Seventy-one percent of respondents had positive market expectations for this year, up from 51 percent in last year's survey. Just 6 percent said they expected this year's overall market performance to drop.

Investors had equal confidence in the domestic equity and fixed-income investment sectors, while their expectations of the US and Canadian markets fell.

The report showed 66 percent of Chinese respondents believed the best equity returns will be gained at home this year while 57 percent said the domestic equity market would also be the best performer over the next decade.

"Although China's economy is slowing, it is still very strong and the nation's structural economic changes have worked, which may explain the high level of confidence in the country's equity market," said Amy Wang, chief representative of Franklin Templeton's Beijing office.

The same was true for fixed-income investment products, with more than half (54 percent) predicting the best returns will be gained this year in China, falling slightly to 51 percent in a decade.

The survey showed a resounding 94 percent of Chinese investors felt optimistic about reaching their 2015 financial goals, and 63 percent said they planned to continue investing aggressively.

Globally, the report showed Chinese investor optimism ranks only behind India, which enjoyed a 97 percent showing.

Despite an overall positive future outlook, the country's slowing growth, the state of the global economy and the government's fiscal policies remained the main concerns of Chinese investors.

Unlike investors from more mature economies, who tend to take a longer-term approach to their investment planning, Chinese investors still prefer to focus on short-term investment goals.

Fifty-one percent said they look no further than a year ahead, making the country home to some of the world's most shortsighted investors, said the report.

"While markets are performing strongly it is always tempting to focus investment strategies on short-term gain," said Wang.

"While there is always a place for this type of investment, it is clear that long-term investment and provision for retirement needs to be more of a priority for people to secure their financial future."

The survey also showed Chinese investors' overseas ambitions had grown steadily in recent years. It said 23 percent of respondents' investments were made outside of China in 2014, and that they expected that level to remain largely unchanged this year (25 percent) and in five years (29 percent).

Asked about preferred overseas investment channels, the investors showed almost equal preference for making investments using their own strategies (28 percent), through exchange traded funds (27 percent) and through banks' Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor program (27 percent).

"We believe investors should hold a diversified asset portfolio, and take a long-term view of their investment strategies," said Wang, "while continually deepening their knowledge of the market."