While markets across the world have seen a whirlwind first half of 2025, risk-on sentiment amongst equity investors is expected to stay, with 48% indicating an increase in their allocation in the next 12 months, while just 13% plan to decrease their investments.
Cautious optimism
While the phenomenon of steadily increasing cost-of-living pressures across the region continues to be sticky, Singapore investors indicate that they have been able to steady or increase their savings and investments in 2025.
Of the survey respondents, 45% have increased their savings so far this year and 44% increased their investments.
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Just 20% reported a decrease in savings and another 18% a decrease in investments.
With regards to financial comfort, over half of Singapore’s investors at 53% see their current financial situation as ‘comfortable’, behind many of their regional peers including mainland China at 74%, Australia at 70% and Hong Kong at 57%.
Additionally, 38% of survey respondents have identified themselves to be ‘coping’, while 9% charactierise themselves as ‘struggling’.
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Interestingly, almost half of Singapore investors at 43% have an optimistic outlook on markets and believe they will see growth, beating the APAC average of 39%.
The most popular financial products amongst investors in Singapore are insurance at 67%, equities at 65% and fixed deposit at 57%.
Most investors across the region have achieved positive investment returns since the start of the year, with investors in Singapore, mainland China and Australia recording better than average returns across the surveyed market.
Despite the success, investors have not gone unworried over market volatility, with 53% of Singapore investors checking their investment portfolio more often since the beginning of the year.
The end of US exceptionalism?
As US equities have been popular in investors’ portfolios through the bull run of recent years, the survey also sought to understand whether this has changed through the first half of 2025.
For Singapore investors holding US equities, results were fairly mixed, with 23% decreasing their allocation since the start of the year, 31% having taken the opportunity to increase exposure and 46% remaining unchanged.
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For those with decreased US equity exposure, almost half at 46% have reallocated assets back to the Singapore market, followed by the China market and global markets.
In terms of preferred investment geographies, the home markets of investors are the top preference in all cases.
Across the region, investors in Hong Kong and Taiwan have decreased their allocation to US equities the most at 37% and 30% respectively.
Equities seem the way to go
While appetite for US assets is seeing only marginal shifts, interest in equities appears set to increase.
Of those surveyed, 43% feel optimistic that the stock market will see at least moderate growth in the next 12 months, with 24% expecting declines.
Almost half of equity investors in Singapore note that they will increase their allocation in the next 12 months, while just 13% plan to decrease.
In contrast, a slightly smaller proportion of investors in Singapore at 42% plan to increase their allocation to term deposits, further illustrating the risk-on positioning.
From the city-state, less than a quarter plan to reduce their overall investment allocation in the next 12 months, largely due to expectations of further market volatility, as well as a lack of confidence in the market after several turbulent years and in making investment decisions.
In terms of sector preferences for the next 12 months, APAC investors are aligned.
The top investment sector across all markets surveyed is information technology, while the healthcare and financial services sectors are top picks for Singapore investors.
When it comes to investment channels, Singapore investors like mobile apps as the most popular channel for investing, followed by online platforms and banks.
Outside of this, only 35% of respondents shared that they invest in digital assets, with cryptocurrency the most popular at 66%, followed by crypto assets at 23% and central bank digital currencies at 19%.
Wildon Goh, head of Southeast Asia and country head of Singapore at Fidelity International notes: “Despite the current volatility experienced this year, it is positive to see more Singapore investors embracing the opportunity to increase rather than decrease their investments. While it may feel uncomfortable given the frequent fluctuations, it is important to realise that market volatility is an inevitable and inherent part of investing.”
