BofAML survey: Fund managers most bearish since 2009

Cash balance surges

Fund managers are at their most bearish since the Global Financial Crisis and are hiking cash levels, according to the June Fund Manager Survey from Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofAML).

The average cash balance in June jumped to 5.6%, from 4.6%,  the biggest jump since the US debt ceiling crisis in 2011 but still slightly below February 2019's level. Fund managers also expressed their caution by reducing global equity allocations by 32 percentage points - the second largest drop ever - to 21% net underweight, the lowest allocation to equities since March 2009. Fund managers' allocation to bonds, meanwhile, has risen 12 percentage points to 22% underweight, which is the highest allocation since September 2011. This combination led the relative allocation of equitie...