The Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) recent decision to cut the official cash rate a further 25 basis points to 3% – a record low not seen since the global financial crisis (GFC) – would suggest the economy’s still in a pretty dire state.

But how can this be when growth in the Australian economy is close to long-term trend, unemployment is low at 4.8% and things aren’t nearly as bad as they were back in 2008 and 2009?

Here comes that pesky term “two-speed economy”. In cutting rates, clearly, the RBA is targeting growth outside the country’s current primary engine – the mining sector – at a time when it’s feared that the resources boom, the high-speed part of the two-speed economy, is slowing.

A quick look at investor sentiment confirms consumers are still feeling pretty shaky about the future state of the economy.

While sentiment among the mass affluent continues to tick up, it remains in negative territory and investment intention remains firmly in the ‘do nothing’ category, according to CoreData’s Q4 Investor Sentiment Index.

The sentiment is now at -7.0, up from an all-time low of -23.5 back in Q2 2012, and investor intention – a measure of willingness to invest money in new and existing products in the next three months – has climbed from a low of -29.7 in Q2 this year.

There are certainly some positive signs among the doom and gloom; a majority of mass affluent investors no longer believe that the Australian economy will grow at a slower rate in the next three months, with the proportion falling to 47.5% from 52.1% in Q3; fewer expect business conditions to worsen (40.7% vs. 44.5%) and almost half (46.6%) feel financially secure – up from 39.5% last quarter.

Perhaps most encouraging for the financial services companies trying to sell product to the consumer market, one-quarter of investors (24.7%) are more likely to invest in domestic equities in the next three months, up marginally from 23.6% in Q3 – and shares have now overtaken cash (19.8%) as the asset class investors are more likely to invest in, suggesting that rate cuts are having an impact on the perceived attractiveness of this safe haven asset.

Let’s not get too excited, though – there’s still a long way to go before the broader investor market feels confident dipping more than just a toe back in the market. займ срочно без отказов и проверок займ в орлезайм для неработающихзайм на карту на 3 месяца