A September poll by PNC Wealth Management says:
...nearly 60% of ultrahigh-net-worth investors are expressing optimism about their portfolios for the coming year..and 4% of investors with $10 million or more of investable assets surveyed expressed pessimism.."
Interestingly the less rich are more pessimistic:
44% of surveyed investors with more than $500,000 or more in investable assets expressed pessimism about the national economy for 2008, and 35% were concerned about a recession.
I am not sure weather to put this under "the power of positive thinking" , or "what comes first, the chicken or the egg". But I keep hearing how the ultra wealthy are recession proof.
The Ultra are not recession proof especially if they are not diversified but the reason that lower asset class investors are pessimistic about a recession is because usually they are part of the employment segment matter fact watch this video of what warren Buffet thinks about a recession.
http://livelymoney.blogspot.com/2007/12/warren-buffet-and-hillary-clinton.html
Posted by: allen Johnson | December 16, 2007 at 05:35 PM
I've only been selling real estate for 11 years but what I think is curious is the fact that when the real estate market is cooling the highest priced properties are selling and when the lower priced properties begin selling, that tells me we're on for another run.
Posted by: Shannon Lefevre | December 18, 2007 at 05:53 PM
It's true, the ultrawealthy are often much more diversified. The average person cannot go out and purchase property abroad, for example. Average people must also settle for mutual funds rather than (occasionally) superior hedge funds.
In response to Shannon's comment, Sam Zell agrees that today's market is only a temporary setback. I wrote a blog post on what he said here:
http://www.themortgagepot.com/learn-from-the-masters-sam-zell
Posted by: Justin | December 18, 2007 at 11:03 PM