Investor Survey Results: Insights and Top Picks for 2023

We recently ran an Investor Profile Survey to help us better understand our users. We asked questions regarding your investing needs, preferences and opinions about Market Index – both positive and negative.

Our aim is to utilise these responses to improve our website to help you achieve your investing goals.

Over a thousand people completed the survey, and now I have the honour of sharing some interesting insights, key findings and personal tips for using Market Index.

How do you go about investing?

Note: The options allowed respondents to select more than one answer.

What asset classes do you invest in?

• Shares 98.3%

• Real Estate 26.9%

• Commodities 12.6%

• Bonds 10.1%

• Cryptocurrency 9.2%

• Infrastructure 9.2%

• Alternatives 5.9%

What investment vehicles do you use?

• Australian shares 98.3%

• ETFs 50.4%

• International shares 31.9%

• LICs 19.3%

• Managed funds 13.5%

• CFDs 2.5%

• Options 1.7%

What are your preferred sectors?

Most preferred:

• Materials 45.4%

• Financials 35.3%

• Energy 31.1%

Least preferred: 

• Communication Services 3.4%

• Utilities 5.0%

• Real Estate 7.6%

The stocks you think will do well in 2023

We asked investors which three stocks they think will perform well in 2023, here are the key results:

Stocks with the most votes:

1. BHP (ASX: BHP)

2. CSL (ASX: CSL)

3. Wesfarmers (ASX: WES)

Small caps appearances:

1. Melbana Energy (ASX: MAY)

2. Patriot Battery Metals (ASX: PMT)

3. Bass Oil (ASX: BAS)

Most popular sectors (among top 30 stocks):

1. Financials (8 counts)

2. Energy (7)

3. Materials (6)

What goes into your investment decision process?

We asked respondents what they liked the least about Market Index – the top answer (40.3%) said they were unclear about how to leverage all of the website data.

As we take a deeper dive into how respondents undergo their due diligence for investing decisions, I’ll also share some of my tips and tricks for using Market Index. 

Ideation and research

When it comes to stock market research and validating investment ideas – the most important was stock market websites (67%) followed by company announcements (36.1%).

Pro Tip #1: A ritual of mine is to skim the Market Index ASX announcements page (filtered by price sensitive only) every morning. Alternatively, our watchlists only show the announcements for companies on the watchlist – e.g. you could create a watchlist filled with lithium stocks, so that way you can see all lithium-related announcements via that watchlist. You could try this with different sectors and/or themes (e.g. a watchlist for growth, shorts, dividends etc.) 

Data and key metrics

Company fundamentals such as PE ratios and earnings was the most important factor (81.5%) for making investment decisions.

Pro Tip #2: You’ll notice that our watchlists have additional tabs such as ‘Fundamentals’, ‘Broker Consensus’ and ‘Performance’.

Market Index watchlists (additional tabs highlighted)

• Within the ‘Fundamentals’ tab, you can filter the stocks within the watchlist by metrics such as EPS, PE ratio and dividend yield

• Within the ‘Broker Consensus’ tab you can see which stocks have the most ‘Strong Buy’ or ‘Strong Sell’ ratings as well as filter for which ones have the most up/downside potential

• Within the ‘Performance’ tab, you can see and filter for time frames such as 1-week, 1-month, year-to-date and 1-year. As well as 1-year performances against the stocks’ respective sector and ASX 200 

Company price charts were the second most important resource for investment decisions. 

Pro Tip #3: This is right down my alleyway, as technicals/charts are where I get my trading ideas from and probably form 70-80% as to why I would buy/sell a stock. On Market Index, if you click the ‘Advanced’ button (bottom left on any of our company page charts) – This’ll take you to a TradingView chart with plenty of features and indicators. 

Market Index company profiles (Advanced charting featured highlighted)

Board and management ownership (21.9%) and Director Trades (20.2%) were also two factors that helped drive investor decisions.

Pro Tip #4: Our Director Transactions scan is one of our most popular scans and shows share transactions made by company directors for every ASX-listed company. The page has a two day delay but has all transactions under the one roof. You can always copy and paste the data into Excel and filter for on-market trades. Alternatively, about ¼ down any company page, you’ll see the director transaction history for that specific company.

Monitoring and managing positions

Unsurprisingly, Watchlists (76.5%) and Online Broking Platforms (73.1%) dominated the answers.

Pro Tip #4: Something a little different. Personally, I don’t like having where I manage and where I monitor trades in the same place. Why? Because I’ll often get sidetracked and distracted by the returns of my positions instead of making objective and data-driven decisions.

New features and content

When it comes to new features, the most popular were – Valuation tools and insights (38.7%), stock screener (32.8%) and analysis tool to compare metrics (31.9%).

In terms of new content, respondents wanted – Technical analysis (52.1%), Analyst and fund manager insights (51.3%) and stock scan/data insights (48.7%).

• Technicals – I hear ya. Maybe we can brew up a technicals segment for Market Index news

• Analyst and fund manager insights – Well, well, well. We joined forces with Livewire Markets, who provide investors access to high-value investment insights, commentary and analysis from Australia’s leading money managers. If you don’t visit the site often, you can always join their “Trending on Livewire” mailing list

• Data Insights – We’re starting to report on some of the data points on Market Index, including articles on director trades, low PE stocks, 52-week highs/lows and short transactions

Learn more

Maximise your investment research with these tools:

• Try Search - get categorised results for all securities, indices, stock scans, commodities, and ASX news

• Try ASX Announcements - for all ASX listed companies, in PDF format

• Try Multi-Watchlists - see latest prices, announcements, & upcoming dividends. Compare fundamentals, broker consensus, & performance all in one place.

• Try Stock Scans - get lists of ASX companies based on predefined data filters

Want to be involved in future research?

We’re looking for Investors to be involved in future research activities. This will help us better understand user needs, and how to improve your investment research experience.

Sign Me Up for Future Research