- As per a monthly survey by investment bank BofA Securities, optimism among fund managers over global economic growth has hit an all-time low. Concerns regarding possible stagflation have risen to the highest since August 2008.
- In the survey, 71% of survey respondents were pessimistic regarding the expectations for global growth in the coming months, the most since the survey records began in the early 1990s.
- The European edition of the survey found investors continuing to cut their European growth projections.
- 81% of survey respondents expect the region's economy to weaken over the coming year, compared with 69% in the March edition.
- Though fund manager holdings of cash, an indicator of investor caution, eased to 5.5% in the April edition of the survey from 5.9% in the previous month, prospects of a global recession remain the top "tail risk" for global markets, the survey found.
- Allocations to commodities jumped to a record 38%.
- Other "long" positions were in resources stocks and healthcare, while "short" bets were in bonds and cyclical stocks, whose performance is most linked to economic growth, BofA said.
- Global profit expectations deteriorated to their weakest levels since March 2020, BofA said.
