Altamira Investment Services Inc. is launching a new leading indicator of investment confidence in a partnership with research and consulting firm Milward Brown Goldfarb. The index will monitor the mood of Canadians to give investors additional insight into making informed decisions.

Each quarter, Milward Brown Goldfarb will conduct a survey of 1,000 adult Canadians across the country to gauge their sentiment on a number of topical areas, including economic and employment expectations, purchase of big-ticket items, outlook for business, interest rates, taxes, and investment preferences. “We want to monitor the pulse of Canadians,” said Dwarka Lakhan, director of communications at Altamira. “Understanding what influences their attitudes and behaviours is key to providing new and useful information to our clients.”

The results of the survey will be weighted appropriately by population figures to reflect the true opinions of Canadians. Results from a total sample size of 1,000 are considered statistically accurate within 3.2 percentage points, 19 times in 20.

“Our goal is to create an index of investment confidence that can be used as a leading indicator,” said Lakhan. “Drawing on historical data available from Milward Brown Goldfarb’s 23-year old Consumer Confidence Index, we aim to establish a reliable and widely followed benchmark which will be called The Toronto Star-Altamira Investment Index. Altamira has partnered with the Toronto Star to provide broader access to the survey results. We believe that the Index will be followed closely by both retail and institutional investors.”
In the November 2002 survey responses indicate that hope in the stock is market fading, while the outlook for Canadian businesses has also fallen However, consumer purchases of big ticket items remain strong.