Asset allocators have almost doubled the size of their overweight position to emerging markets, reaching a level which has historically coincided with short-term underperformance, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofA ML) fund manager survey for February.
As risk appetite returned to more normal levels in February, global managers upped their weightings to emerging markets from a net 20% overweight in January to a net 44% overweight, according to the survey. This represents the second biggest jump in the region in the past 12 years, following an improvement in sentiment towards the prospects for the global economy in the coming year.
In February, a net 11% of global managers predicted the global economy will strengthen in the coming 12 months, up from the net 27% who predicted a worsening economy in December.
Gary Baker, the head of European equities strategy at BofA ML global research, says historically such a large shift in sentiment towards emerging markets can be seen as a contrarian trade, with the argument the sector has got too far ahead of itself.
With cash balances falling and allocations to equities rising, Baker describes February’s survey as managers taking off the ’risk off’ trade, although not yet to a level that can be described as ’risk on’.
In the European survey, banks saw a 38 percentage point swing in their weighting in February, which is the third biggest shift since the survey started. Meanwhile the autos sector hit its biggest overweight, with a net 20% of investors overweight, up from 18% last month.
The large bellwether defensives meanwhile fell out of favour, says Baker, with healthcare fell by 30 percentage points to a net 18% underweight, its third largest ever one month fall.
Globally, technology remains the most favoured sector, hitting a level, like emerging markets, which Baker describes as dangerous
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