SYDNEY - Fewer Australians are participating in the stock market than at any point in the past eight years, a new study shows.
An Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) survey of 2405 people nationwide showed 46 per cent of respondents owned shares either directly or indirectly - down from55 per cent in 2004.
The researchers said many of those to have exited the market in the past two years had done so to pay off debts on homes and investment properties and were less sophisticated investors.
"Those who have left were more passive, inactive investors," ASX market research manager Mary-Anne Muscat said. She said many became shareholders accidentally, through demutualisations, the floating of public utilities and enterprises, or employee share schemes.
The "accidental" share owners contrasted with the investors who now typified share ownership in Australia.
Research showed shareholders are now just as likely to be female as male, aged 35 plus and university educated, with a household income of more than A$100,000. Their method of investing has also become more complex: the typical investor has a stake in nine companies, up from seven in 2004, according to the study.
And 19 per cent of Australian shareholders had foreign investments, up from 7 per cent in 2002.
But the study also showed a remarkable geographic division in share ownership.
Between 2004 and 2006, direct share ownership in regional areas plunged from 45 per cent to 32 per cent, which the ASX believes is largely attributable to the financial strain of the drought.
"The message back from the focus groups we conducted ... about the redeployment of funds from one area to another was a fairly strong message," ASX marketing general manager Peter van Steensel said.
The study also found the three most important sources shareholders consulted in making investment decisions were newspapers, friends and family, and financial planners.
Muscat said that despite the decline, the ASX was confident Australia was still among the world's top share-owning nations.
