Brits still keen to invest despite credit crisis

New research shows people in the UK are still keen to invest despite economic turmoil and some are even benefiting.

ODL Markets (ODL), the financial brokerage who is set to launch a new spread betting service this week, found that 33% of people will be actively looking to make more from their investment in 2008. Despite the accusations of the UK as a frivolous nation, almost 75% are regularly saving every month.

ODL also found that 33% would actively be looking for the most tax-efficient way of making the most of their spare cash, 37% invested a fixed amount, with a further 34% setting aside spare cash every month.

A quarter of respondents invested over 20% of their spare cash each month, almost 45% felt that buying property was a good short to medium term investment and a tenth of respondents were not aware that tax was payable on profits from selling an investment property, interest gained from money in a deposit account or from share dealings or dividends.

Over one in four people surveyed would take calculated risks and, given the hypothetical scenario of being given £10,000, over half said they would risk at least a quarter of the amount to try and double their money. However, with £500, only one in ten would invest any of it.

James Parker, head of spread betting at ODL markets, said: ‘Even though people are still keen to invest or speculate, generally they are not aware of the full range of financial tools at their disposal.’

He added: ‘Even in today’s economic climate, people are still happy to take financial risks if they think the rewards will be high enough.’

Tags: economic turmoil, ODL, ODL Markets, spread betting, UK, volatility

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 1:19 am and is filed under Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.