US stock optimism reaches highest level since December 2024
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- A net 24% of respondents to Bank of America's Global Fund Manager Survey expect US equities to outperform other global regions, representing the third-highest allocation weight to US stocks recorded over the past five years.
- Fund manager bullishness towards US equities has reached its highest level since December 2024, according to the latest survey results published by Bank of America (NYSE:BAC).
- In contrast, investor confidence in UK-listed stocks has fallen to its lowest point since August 2020, with fund managers cutting their allocations to London-listed shares.
The divergence in sentiment reflects a notable gap in year-to-date performance between the two markets, with London's FTSE 100 rising 5.7% year-to-date compared with a gain of more than 10% for the US S&P 500 over the same period.
The survey results suggest that institutional investors are increasingly concentrating equity allocations in the United States at the expense of other developed markets, with the UK experiencing one of the sharpest sentiment declines among the regions tracked.
The shift in fund manager positioning towards US equities comes amid a broader reassessment of global equity weightings, with the performance gap between the S&P 500 and international indices continuing to drive capital towards American markets.
Analysts note that the elevated bullishness towards US stocks recorded in the survey could itself become a contrarian indicator, as historically high consensus positioning in any single market has occasionally preceded periods of relative underperformance.