Maybe things aren’t so gloomy for UK equities after all. Despite tepid economic growth in the second half of last year and a tax-raising Autumn Budget in October, investor confidence in UK equities has risen by 6% this month, according to investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown.
Perhaps more impressive is the fact that the UK has bucked the trend. Confidence in every other region fell, with investors 14% more negative on emerging markets and 11% more negative on Japan. Although North America remains the region with the highest level of confidence overall, investors are now less positive than they once were, with confidence plummeting by 13% in February.
To some extent, this mirrors what we are seeing in stock markets. The FTSE 100 has hit several record highs so far in 2025, and is up almost 6% since the start of the year, at the time of writing. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 (which delivered more than double the FTSE’s return in 2024)…
