Global institutional investor sentiment falls

Institutional investors continued the pattern established late last year of reducing allocations to equities, with the sentiment falling by six percentage points in February.

This is according to State Street's Investor Confidence Index, which measures investor confidence or risk appetite quantitatively by analysing the actual buying and selling patterns of institutional investors.

The decline was most pronounced among North American investors, whose confidence fell 9.5 points to 80.5, according to Harvard University professor Kenneth Froot, who developed the index with Paul O'Connell of State Street Associates.

"Across the regions there was a significant divergence this month," said O'Connell.

"The latest round of policy developments in Europe went some way towards lowering the risk of a catastrophic 'tail event' crisis, and this improved the mood of European investors."

Asian investors held their outlook constant, though O'Connell did note that net purchases of Pacific (ex-Japan) equities by all global investors were relatively robust.