(Reuters) - U.S. stocks remain the most favoured equity region for global fund managers despite recent market wobbles, with the S&P500 index broadly expected to rise 12 percent more before peaking, Bank of America Merrill Lynch's investor survey showed on Tuesday.
The November survey, conducted Nov 2-8 and canvassing investors managing $641 billion, found a net 44 percent of participants expected global growth to decelerate in the coming year, the worst outlook since the 2008 financial crisis, while a net 54 percent predict a Chinese slowdown, the most bearish in over two years.
Yet only 11 percent expected a global recession in 2019, and in a sign of confidence, they cut their cash balances sharply to an average 4.7 percent, versus last month's 5.1 percent.
Allocation to U.S. shares climbed 10 percentage points to a net 14 percent overweight, the poll showed while tech shares, -- known collectively as FAANG and BAT -- remained the most crowded trade for the tenth straight month, followed by the dollar and a short position in U.S. Treasury bonds.
In response to a question on where the S&P 500 would peak in the current bull run, investors pointed to a level of 3056, up 12 percent from today's level. But a third of respondents said the market had already peaked.
However, allocation to the global tech sector collapsed to the lowest level since February 2009, with just net 18 percent of investors saying they were overweight the sector, the poll showed.
(Reporting by Sujata Rao and Ritvik Carvalho)
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