The COVID-19 pandemic and the asset allocation of private investors in Germany. An empirical study of the influence (PDF)

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2021 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 1,7, University of Applied Sciences Essen (FOM Hochschule), language: English, abstract: This paper investigates, how private investors in Germany were influenced by the pandemic regarding their asset allocation. It presents a study that investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the asset allocation of private investors in Germany. For this purpose, empirical data is collected by means of a survey and interesting results are recorded.

As the markets acted turbulent, it is expected that people have adapted to the situation and eventually have shifted between several investment instruments - also, that people were influenced in the form of changing focus regarding investor keywords like diversification, risk tolerance and others. Therefore, an empirical study with the help of a questionnaire is done.
Expectations for the future development of the investors are also addressed. In view of the limited time and resources available for the preparation of this scientific work, it is pointed out that external studies are also included in the search for results and new findings. The sum of the results of all studies including the survey conducted in this thesis is then finally used to answer the research topic or the question.

It feels like there is barely other news presented by the media as COVID-19 affects economy and social life very much in many if not all countries on our planet. That is not very surprising as the numbers of the worldwide production in the first quarter of 2020 decreased by about 15.5 percent, what could lead to a total decrease of 4.9 percent in 2020 as the DIW in Berlin estimates
Also, the current situation on the labor market, which is important for lots of people, does not reassure at all. When zooming in and only looking at Germany in this regard, it can be stated that the number of new gained employed persons decreases a lot comparing it to past quarters. This could lead to people not being able to pay their rent, credits and other bills what could have tremendous impact to other factor markets and social life of many people. Closed businesses, increased working from home and travel restrictions also caused a decrease of customer spending as the value of the first quarter of 2020 is around three percent lower than the previous quarter.