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A trader looks at a screen at the New York Stock Exchange, USA.
LONDON, March 15 (Archyde.com) – Investors are more worried about global growth prospects than at any time since the 2008 financial crisis, and have increased their cash holdings to a two-year high, according to a monthly survey of fund managers made by BofA.
Most investors managing around $1 trillion in assets, surveyed between March 4-10, now expect a bear market in 2022, while allocations to global equities have fallen to record lows. since May 2020.
Cash levels among investors rose to almost 6%, while allocations to commodities soared to a record 33%. Hedge fund net exposure to equity markets is at its lowest level since April 2020, according to the survey.
The busiest trades are long oil/commodities, the US investment bank said in the note, with tech stocks long and ESG – environmental, social and governance – long second and third. , respectively. Nearly half of investors surveyed expect crude oil to produce the best returns in 2022.
The European edition of the monthly fund manager survey gave a gloomy reading as investors cut their growth outlook for Europe in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Some 69% of those surveyed expect the European economy to weaken over the next year, the highest percentage since 2011. The change of 81 percentage points from February’s 12% net, which still expected to see growth, marks the biggest drop MoM since BoFA records began in 1994.
In response to gloomy growth prospects, some 61% of investors believe the European market has peaked this cycle, up from 22% in the previous edition of the study.
Investors have also slightly raised their expectations for the number of Federal Reserve rate hikes in 2022, even though liquidity conditions have worsened sharply, to their lowest level since the coronavirus pandemic hit. to the financial markets in March and April 2020.
(Reporting by Saikat Chatterjee; edited in Spanish by Carlos Serrano)