Look to different data sources, and you’ll get very different answers.
July’s Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Fund Manager Survey – a report widely considered to be the opinions of where fund managers would like to be rather than where they are necessarily positioned – actually suggests investors are 40% overweight eurozone equities, though this was down from 46% in June.
Despite the Greek news flow, intention to own European assets is “high and rising”, the firm’s analysts said.
However, this data contradicts research from Barclays Investor Intel from 20 July which suggests positioning in the eurozone equities is still underweight, while also stating that dedicated European mutual funds are holding a lot of cash.
"While eurozone equities may well be cheap, it still takes a brave investor to buy"
“Positioning in euro area equities by dedicated Europe mutual funds and global equity funds has been underweight as Greek risks have come to the fore,” the research reads.
“The fact that it took one week for the Euro Stoxx 50 index to recoup the sell-off that took two weeks supports this view. Our equity strategists point out that company analysts in Europe are also currently very conservative with their ratings of European companies, supporting the notion of still-subdued sentiment.”
