Australian investors, and their advisers, faced another strange and unchartered investment landscape in FY23, as they navigated geopolitical shifts, and rate hikes. Investor behaviour as a whole is changing, driven by innovation in investment technology and accessibility, economic and sector fluctuations, and new waves of investor concerns, motivations, and expectations.

As Australia’s leading independent technology and infrastructure provider for financial market access, clearing and settlement services, FinClear provides access to capital markets and trading solutions to online brokers, stockbrokers, wealth managers and financial planners serving retail investors.

With over half a million investor accounts on our infrastructure, FinClear has a unique vantage point over these behaviours, and in particular the investment behaviours of high-net-worth (HNW) investors who, with more investable assets, hold more of their assets in the stock market than other Australian investors.

FinClear applied its in-house AI capabilities to analyse investment strategies of HNWs over the financial year 2022-2023. It also took a peek back at CY 2022 to see how the same investment strategies worked in more volatile markets.

Key findings included:

• The average portfolio size for HNW female investors was $1.08m, 8% larger than their male counterparts at $1.00m
• While in FY23 female and male HNW investors with diversified portfolio strategy achieved broadly consistent returns of 13.1% and 13.8% respectively, they did so in very different ways that suit different market conditions
• However, female HNW investors adopting high conviction strategies outperformed male investors by 7.5%, which for an average HNW portfolio equated to an upside of $75,000.