Heightened economic uncertainty and increased stress among clients has seen financial adviser business sentiment plunge into the red for the first time in three years, research has found.

More than half of financial advisers expect business conditions to be worse next quarter compared to the current one. And the research says advisers are finding more clients deferring retirement and preferring to continue to earn an income from employment as a way of riding out the economic uncertainty, which is having an impact on adviser sentiment.

CoreData Research’s latest Adviser Pulse Check survey has found that 52 per cent of advisers expect business conditions to be somewhat worse (46 per cent) or much worse (6 per cent) next quarter.

This is in stark contrast to the previous quarter where one in five (22 per cent) of advisers expressed a negative outlook, and the quarter before that the figure was only one in eight (12.5 per cent).

In the current quarter one in five (20 per cent) advisers expect conditions to be somewhat better (19 per cent) or much better (1 per cent).

The survey of 366 advisers reflects what CoreData founder and global CEO Andrew Inwood says is “rising economic uncertainty and increasingly stressed customers”.