See You in Better Times

Realisierungsjahr: 2009

The survey aimed to ascertain the opinions on future trends in the Czech and global economy primarily of respondents who have fundamental influence over the formulation of economic and financial analyses and the application of their results in everyday decision-making practices.

The questioning took place between January 19 and 26, 2009, with the help of Donath-Burson-Marsteller’s electronic questionnaire system.

We contacted Czech CFA Society (hereinafter “CFA”) members and candidates, leading managers and VIP guests of the Forecasting Dinner 2009 (VIPs), OVB Allfinanz (OVB) Regional Directorates managers and selected business media reporters (journalists).

The questionnaires were completed by 351 respondents, of whom 92 were members and candidates of the Czech CFA Society, 118 were leading managers and VIP guests, 135 were OVB Allfinanz Regional Directorate managers and six were business media reporters from the Czech media.

Main Findings

On aggregate, the positions of the two main groups of respondents differed in the degree of optimism regarding future trends. In contrast to the respondents from OVB, the outlook of the CFA group was generally less optimistic.

Seven out of 10 respondents believed that the current crisis is the largest financial crisis since the 1930s. 79% of CFA and leading managers and almost three-fifths (59%) of OVB financial advisers supported this opinion.

Almost 80% of respondents were convinced that government intervention has a positive influence on alleviating the impact of the crisis.

Nearly a third of the total number of respondents (31%) said that the main cause of the current financial crisis was the greediness of banks. In almost a quarter of cases, “over-structuralized instruments” (24%) and “failure of regulation and oversight” (23%) were mentioned as main reasons of the crisis.

OVB managers assessed the main causes of the crisis more sharply: 42% said it was due to the greediness of banks and 30% said it was due to a failure of regulation and oversight.

In the case of Chartered Financial Analysts (CFA) and leading managers (VIP), the most frequent reason for the crisis was the term “over-structuralized instruments” (32% of respondents).

There was complete agreement between both groups (43%) in the opinion that the Central Europe region will come out of the crisis best. 39% of respondents from both groups believed it would be China.

According to the majority opinion of the CFA group, the world economy will hit the bottom in the third quarter of 2009. In this regard, OVB respondents were more optimistic, as most of them thought the bottom would be reached by the middle of the year (42%). Among the CFA respondents, it was only 22%.

In the most important question for investors – what should they invest in – OVB and the group of CFA respondents also agree. According to both groups, shares will be the best-performing financial instrument this year. There was also agreement that the best-performing share indexes this year will be American ones.

The economic model of the future is a liberal market economy of the West European/American type, according to the majority of participants in the Internet survey (72% of replies).

In the question of whether the Czech national currency protects the Czech economy better than the euro would protect it, participants in the research did not have a clear opinion. 44% believed that the koruna protects the domestic economy better, whereas 46% thought that the euro would protect it better.

Kontakt: Lenka Štěpanyová