US reigns supreme with global fund managers

The latest Wren Advisers Portfolio Poll shows that global share funds trimmed their holdings of US stocks during the December quarter 2020 but still have near-record high weightings.

As has been the case for the past few years, American fund managers are typically more pessimistic about prospects in their own equities market than their European counterparts.

British funds are also under the neutral benchmark weight in the US but this is largely because they are so bullish about their own share market. They have over 10 per cent of their money in the UK which is more than double the neutral allocation of 4.1 per cent.

Emerging market equities, which tend to benefit from a weaker US dollar, were slightly down compared to the previous survey in September 2020. The latest survey shows an average weighting of 5.8 per cent which is well below the neutral benchmark of 14.7 per cent. The average weighting in Japanese equities is 6.0 per cent which is roughly where it has been for the past two years.