Global investors up cash levels in August amid trade war: BofA-ML survey

Money managers increased cash levels in August, amid escalation in global trade wars. Cash levels rose to five per cent, from 4.7 per cent in the previous month, revealed Bank of America Merrill Lynch's (BofA-ML's) global fund manager survey. 

The survey showed buying technology stocks remained the most-crowded trade, followed by shorting emerging markets (EM). Allocation to EMs stood at net one per cent underweight after dropping 44 percentage points since April 2018. Allocations, however, were still well above prior crisis lows of net 17 per cent underweight in 2008 and net 31 per cent underweight in 2013. The BofA-ML survey also revealed that global investors were heavily overweight US equities at net 19 per cent. The survey was conducted between August 3 and 9 on 243 participants managing $735 billion of investor wealth.