BRICs do well in latest investor survey

Britain’s investors are becoming more willing to increase their exposure to potentially risky assets.

Offshore private banking wealth management customers were found to be turning away from ’safer’ bets such as income funds and increasing their exposure to the BRICs - Brazil, Russia, India, China.

Funds based on these countries took over the top three places in the ’most-bought’ category of last week, Interactive Investor said.

Meanwhile, income funds were the first and second ’most-sold’ funds, with a gold-based fund taking third place.

Guaranteed-return investment funds and gold have done well over recent months, due in part to client nervousness at the stability of the markets in the financial crisis.

However, with inter-bank lending rates continuing to fall and reports of improvement in several economic indicators, returns-hungry investors now appear to have changed tack.

Rebecca O’Keeffe, head of investment at Interactive Investor, said: ’We are seeing strong flows of money into emerging markets funds and especially to those funds that represent the BRICs economies such as China, India and Russia.

’It is also notable that the top funds sold are country specific stocks, rather than general emerging market funds. This tells us that investors believe these economies will offer the best prospects for growth in the medium and longer term, and reflects the strong gains recently made in these markets.’ADNFCR-2318-ID-19214175-ADNFCR