(23
January 2009) - The latest Wren Research survey
of global equity funds shows that Japan and the
U.K. were once again the favourite stock markets
for international investors. The consensus view
seems to be that the U.S. and Asia are more vulnerable
to weaker earnings than elsewhere and that Continental
Europe is more risky than the U.K.
The world benchmark weighting for the U.S. stock
market is 44.4% but the participants in our survey
had an average weighting of 42.7%. That's significantly
below average but not as low as it was during
the late 1990s. American fund managers are generally
more pessimistic about their own market than European
and Asian investors with the average asset allocation
of just 41.9%.
Japan has a neutral weighting of 10.0% in the
world market but most managers had well above
this benchmark, especially European-based funds
which had an average weighting of 14%. Some have
as much as one-third of their money in Japan.
Demand for Asian stocks has continued to trend
downward with nearly every fund holding well under
the 10.1% neutral weighting for this region. American
managers are particularly gloomy on Asia's prospects
with an average asset allocation of just 4.7%.