Where are investors researching right now? Insights from the InvestmentMarkets platform.

Hi, I'm Darren Connolly, CEO at Investment Markets.

At Investment Markets, we have a rather simple objective.

It is to empower self-directed investors to search, find, compare, and then select the right investment opportunity for them.

We are an easily accessible platform where you can find more than 700 investment opportunities across more than 25 different asset classes, alongside regular high quality educational content and investor webinars like this one, all designed to keep you better informed and making better decisions.

We are not a media business.

We are not about headlines or minute by minute movement in markets or stock prices.

Our business model isn't predicated on cultivating anxiety or FOMO.

We don't believe trying to scare investors is the right way to approach investing.

The war in the Middle East, however, will have an inevitably spark questions in the mind of every investor about what it all means for them and whether or not their portfolio needs to change.

And during periods of market volatility like this, we typically see increased investor interest in lower risk or more diversified strategies on our platform as investors process what it all means.

This is a familiar pattern, albeit potentially a badly timed one.

When global events dominate the news cycle and markets turn red, commentary quickly shifts to how to minimize losses.

But knee-jerk reactions to geopolitics can sometimes create many more problems than they solve, including crystallizing losses.

And by the time it's a headline on the six o'clock news, it's usually too late to act.

And markets have experienced geopolitical shocks many times before and will many times again.

And in most cases, they don't change the main long-term force that drives investment returns, and that is earnings.

Now a shock can certainly create a period of uncertainty, but it's only one factor in a much bigger system and trying to reposition a portfolio every time something like this happens is extremely difficult, if not nigh on impossible.

Today, I thought it worthwhile to share some insights on the recent activity of investors on the investment markets platform.

Sometimes it's really good just to see what your peers are doing.

So our analysis was simply of the traffic on our platform in terms of what investors are looking at, what products they're looking at across the 25 or so different asset classes or categories on the platform.

Now we focused on the top 10 by volume because that represents about 80% of the total traffic.

I should mention, this is the second time we've undertaken this analysis.

When we looked at it for our November investor webinar, we used the data for the six months to the end of October, 2025, which, to be honest, already feels like a very, very long time ago.

This analysis looks at the roughly five months that have happened since.

Now the results the first time around had four of the top five categories being income focused.

With property funds, mortgage funds, diversified income funds and private credit all being in the top five, bond funds were in the top 10 and combined they all comprised over 50% of the overall traffic.

However, as you can see on this slide for Q1 2026, the picture looks quite different.

ETFs are now the most popular category closely followed by global equities funds, both at around 25% of overall traffic.

The popularity of ETFs is probably of no surprise to anyone.

But we were a little bit surprised to see global equities funds move from fifth place last time to second this time.

Albeit, it is true that both options do provide ways for investors to diversify outside of the domestic market.

Mortgage funds and Australian equities funds are in third and fourth place with 15% and 10% share respectively.

Mortgage funds are edging up, Aussie equity funds are edging down, and there are four main categories rounding out the rest of the top 10.

Property funds, alternative funds, income funds, and private credit with about 28% of the total traffic.

In addition to share traffic, I thought it was interesting to also highlight growth over the last two full months of 2025 versus the full two months of 2026.

Platform growth across this window was a little under 19% as you can see, and I've split the categories into above and below this rate.

top, and admittedly coming off a relatively small base, is alternatives, which includes commodities, gold, and resources, plus infrastructure.

Licks and Lits were second, and both those two categories were, as you can see, up strongly.

Mortgage funds, global equities funds and multi-asset funds, which tend to be a little bit more balanced, were also showing above-platform growth and increased investor interest.

It will be interesting to see if interest in these areas diverges as inflationary pressures, increased interest rates and a softening of the general economy have an impact.

ETFs, while the largest category is mentioned, are growing close to par, while property funds have grown nominally, but by less than the system growth.

Increasing interest rates may be providing a bit of a headwind for these funds, but the general difficulty in getting buildings out of the ground and the resulting lack of new supply is likely to favor investors investing in these types of assets.

Interest in domestic Aussie equity funds and fixed income funds are both down quite substantially, and there has been quite a precipitous drop in interest for private credit.

This is quite a marked change from the survey last year, perhaps driven by negative media headlines and questions around the sector.

As you can see, investor interest has changed quite a lot, even over the last five to six months.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that you should react.

Keep calm.

This isn't the first and won't be the last such market shock or geopolitical event that we see.

It's important to maintain perspective.

Shut out at least some of the noise if you can.

Remind yourself that investing is a long-term exercise and it's often said that volatility is the price of admission.

Focus should remain on maintaining a disciplined long-term investment strategy designed to account for exactly these types of events.

Your portfolio should be constructed to be what I would call a sleep well portfolio, one that can withstand periods of market stress without forcing you to react to short-term noise.

If you do feel compelled to act, it's often a sign that your portfolio is exposed in some way.

Remember, diversification across sectors, asset classes and geographies, plus discipline and patience is what matters most in these times.

I hope you found these insights interesting.