Trade war still the biggest tail risk: BofAML survey

Mumbai: Fund managers are increasing cash levels amid continued concern over trade war, according to the findings of a Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s fund manager survey. Cash level jumped to 5% from 4.7% in the previous month, which is higher than average level of 4.5% in the past 10 years.The survey was conducted between August 3 and 9 and 243 panellists with $735 billion in assets under management participated in it.Trade war is seen as the biggest tail risk by 57% of the fund managers followed by quantitative tightening and slowdown in China, which were the biggest tail risks for 15% and 14%, respectively, among those surveyed.“Trade war remains the biggest ‘tail risk’ for FMS investors, with conviction slightly down from last month, which was the highest since concerns surrounding EU sovereign debt funding in Jul ‘12,” the survey showed.Allocation to emerging markets stayed at 1% underweight, which is 0.9 standard deviation below the long-term average, the survey showed. Short EM equity is the second most crowded trade, according to the survey.“August rotation shows investors buying banks and continued flight to perceived safe havens via US equities & cash vs. selling commodity sectors, and defensive sectors/ regions,” said the survey.US stocks emerged as the biggest overweight for fund managers since January 2015, with allocations to US equities rising 10 percentage points to 19% overweight, as investors continued to buy growth over value both regionally and sectorally, the survey showed. The profit outlook for US is also favourable.Long FAANG Stocks (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet’s Google) and BAT (Baidu Inc, Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings) emerged as the most crowded trade in August, according to the survey. Short treasuries was also among the most crowded trades.

from The Economic Times https://ift.tt/2KSz1C2