Investor optimism sees biggest jump since June 2020, survey shows

MILAN – Global investor optimism posted its biggest jump since June 2020 in October due to Federal Reserve rate cuts, stimulus pledges from China, and expectations of a soft landing for the US economy, a BofA survey of fund managers published on Tuesday showed.

Cash allocations dropped to 3.9% from 4.2% in September month, while equity allocations rose to a net 31% overweight, and bond allocations suffered a record drop to a net 15% underweight, according to the survey.

“Our broadest measure of (fund manager survey) sentiment, based on cash levels, equity allocation, and economic growth expectations, rose from 3.8 to 5.6, its largest monthly rise since Jun’20,” BofA said.

The survey showed investors expect the upcoming US election will most likely impact trade policy (47%), followed by geopolitics (15%) and taxation (11%).

In terms of how investors are positioning in light of the soft-landing narrative, the survey showed the biggest rise in global equity allocation since June 2020.

However, the steep drop in cash levels has triggered the first contrarian “sell signal” since last June, based on the bank’s own metrics.

“Since 2011, there have been 11 prior ‘sell’ signals which saw global equity (ACWI) returns of -2.5% in the 1 month after and -0.8% in the three months after the ‘sell’ signal was triggered,” the bank said, in reference to the performance of MSCI’s All-World index (ACWI), which is up 0.6% so far in October, heading for its sixth monthly rise.

The survey, which took place from Oct 4 to Oct 10, polled 231 panelists with USD 574 billion in assets under management.

(Reporting by Danilo Masoni and Amanda Cooper; Editing by Christina Fincher)