Submitted by nsscadmin on
Our blog series on stats and numbers from the 2024 Investor Index concludes with a look at results from the 2024 Investor Knowledge Quiz. Our blog has looked at the investor knowledge quiz before in 2017 and in 2020. We also created a video on the investor knowledge quiz. Did Canadian investment knowledge improve in 2024? How about Nova Scotians? Let’s take a look.
Here’s how the investor index for low-level of investment knowledge changed between 2020 and 2024:
|
2020 |
2024 |
|
48% |
44% |
That means out of the seven questions respondents answered, they got between zero and three correct.
Respondents with a high-level of investment knowledge (6-7 answers correct) saw a very small uptick:
|
2020 |
2024 |
|
21% |
22% |
In Nova Scota there were similar trends for low-level investment knowledge:
|
2020 |
2024 |
|
59% |
52% |
Nova Scotians with a high-level of investment knowledge showed a higher increase then the overall index:
|
2020 |
2024 |
|
15% |
20% |
As usual, the more involved respondents were in investing, the better their results in the quiz. For example, those with no savings and no investments often did poorly on the quiz, with 66% recording a low-level of investment knowledge, compared to only 6% reporting a high-level. Index respondents who identified as frequent investors delivered better results, with only 30% reporting a low-level and 32% reporting a high level of knowledge.
Age also has a major impact on how well respondents did on the quiz, with older adults typically scoring much better than younger persons.
|
Age group |
Low-level Knowledge |
High-Level Knowledge |
|
18-24 |
58% |
10% |
|
65+ |
31% |
34% |
Investor education and financial literacy in high school and at younger ages is needed to improve these numbers. The Commission regularly visits high school classes and speaks to students taking Finance and Investing 12, an elective course that teaches students basic financial literacy. When presented with the questions from the Investor Knowledge Quiz almost all students taking this class have a high-level of knowledge.
If you would like to learn more about the Investor Index, and delve deeper in to some of the stats and numbers we’ve examined in this blog series, you can download the full index results from the CSA website here.