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Groww has released findings from its recent survey that looked at investors’ portfolio performance in 2021, choice of investment baskets, expectations, and strategies for 2022. According to the survey findings, a majority of semi-urban and rural Indian investors expressed their satisfaction with the performance of their investments in 2021. About 44% of the respondents were satisfied by the returns generated in 2021. While 26% of respondents reported incurring losses in 2021, about 30% of respondents said their returns exceeded their expectations in 2021.
The survey was conducted among individuals across 357 centres including semi-urban and rural regions. More than half (56.6%) of the responses were received from Tier 4 markets such as Balasore, Medinipur, Ongole, Ballia, Deoria, Sikar, Nadia, Singabhum, Yadgir, among others.
Encouraged by the performance of their investments in 2021, semi-urban and rural investors are willing to allocate a higher proportion of their savings to financial assets. About 9.21% of these individuals are willing to invest more than half of their income and another 7.97% are aiming to invest 40-50% of their income towards investments this year. A majority of respondents i.e. 43.17% investors are looking to invest 10-25% of their income in 2022.
Harsh Jain, co-founder and COO of Groww, said, “We are witnessing a retail investing boom which is fuelled by smaller towns and cities all over the country. Tech investing platforms, a strong regulator, and the government's push for digitization have unlocked the access to investing for thousands of retail investors all over the country."
According to the survey, the expectations of most investors were either met or exceeded by the market. 46% of the respondents said they have a steady investing outlook in 2021, 43% have a bullish outlook, and 11% have a bearish investing outlook in 2022. Most respondents of the survey hope to invest 10-25% of their income in financial assets in 2022."
Investing in multiple investment baskets
In 2022, investors across India (urban, semi-urban and rural) are keen to explore multiple investment baskets. Allocation in 2022 could include initial public offers (IPOs), cryptocurrency and even stocks listed on US stock exchanges. About 61.3% of the respondents said they would like to explore initial public offers (IPOs), while 44.8% are willing to test cryptocurrency. Digital Gold and REITS too featured in the list of assets being aimed at in 2022. Interestingly, only 27.7% of the respondents are not willing to dabble in unexplored asset classes.
When asked about the type of stocks they would like to invest in 2022, 56% of investors are planning to invest in IT stocks, and 13.3% indicated their willingness to invest in penny stocks followed by pharma, real estate and FMCG at 7.7%, 7.1% and 6.8% respectively.
Diversifying investment portfolios
A high number of respondents across India agreed to increase their investments in stock markets and mutual funds for long-term gains (36.2%) in 2021, even as less than a quarter wanted to make short-term gains (22.8%). Rebalancing of portfolios featured high on the agenda of investors in 2021. Even as 16.8% rebalanced their portfolio from a high-risk standpoint, another 16% rebalanced it for the conservative outlook. Another 8.2% aligned their portfolio to include new asset classes such as gold, cryptocurrency and IPOs.
When asked about their outlook for 2022, 51% of respondents said they would have an aggressive investing approach as against 49% who chose to remain conservative. A majority are anticipating a steady or a bullish stock market ride until June 2022, with only 11.2% foreseeing a bearish phase.
Investors are also planning to increase investments in mutual funds; 82% plan to invest in this asset in 2022, as compared to 66.8% in 2021, as per the survey.
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