What are the biggest worries of investors with a lot of money in Asia-Pacific?

DNHN - A new survey by the Swiss private bank Lombard Odier shows that super-wealthy investors in the Asia-Pacific region are changing the way they invest. Before, they just waited to see when a pandemic broke out and then put their money to work.

A survey of 450 wealthy investors in the Asia-Pacific region—those with at least $1 million in assets that can be invested—showed their biggest worries. According to the survey, these include how to deal with market volatility and geopolitical risks and how to better diversify portfolios to reduce these risks.

Lombard Odier says that since the survey in 2020, the need for these strategies has grown.

"Most investors are taking a wait-and-see approach during the peak of COVID-19 in 2020," said Jean-Francois Aboulker, Head of Extreme Net Worth Strategy at Lombard Odier's high in Asia.

"This is mostly because they don't know enough about the risks and don't know what will happen during the pandemic," "Jean-François Aboulker said.

Worries about rising inflationary

About 68% of investors in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Australia have changed or redesigned their portfolios to fit the current market.

About 77% of the people who were polled said that rising inflation and the possibility of a recession were the most worrying things. This is what worries Singaporeans the most.

The report said, "Even Japan, where inflation has been close to zero for more than 30 years, is facing inflationary pressures right now, and 69 per cent of wealthy Japanese investors are worried about it."

"It's not clear if the Bank of Japan will tighten, but a third of Japan's wealthy investors think it will happen in the next 12 months."

Rich investors in the region are generally less worried about a possible rise in interest rates, mostly because they think most governments would be careful not to raise rates to a level that would hurt the growth of the economy.

But investors in Australia and Indonesia aren't so sure. About 70% of those surveyed in those two countries said that higher interest rates were a "significant worry" for them.

Geopolitical risks can have an effect

Geopolitical tensions are one of the biggest worries for investors in the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Many of these investors think that geopolitical risks and conflicts will have a big effect on the returns of their investments. They are also worried that they might miss out on opportunities during this time of uncertainty.

Because "stock prices are falling, credit spreads are widening, and interest rates are high," many people in Hong Kong and Japan have questioned the effectiveness of their current diversification strategies "Their portfolios were hurt by it.

Two things happened to try to lessen these risks.

The survey shows that super-rich investors in APAC have become more careful and are moving away from traditional asset classes like stocks and bonds to invest more in their businesses.

Many people have also put their money into "safer" assets like cash and gold. Some people are also putting their money into private assets like private equity, private debt, real estate, and investments in infrastructure. In this portfolio, investors from Singapore and Australia are at the front of the pack.

Also, many investors have left their home markets in the past two years. The report shows that investors, especially Japanese and Indonesian, have made their portfolios more global.

"These investors are smart and know how important it is to take a long-term view when looking for assets outside of their home market," said Aboulker of Lombard Odier. "They also know how important it is to depend less on the market for domestic factors."

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