By Chris Shaw<\/p>\n
Global financial markets remain volatile, but this is not stopping professional investors from becoming more positive. The December quarter Russell Investment Manager Outlook survey shows 54% of fund managers responding are adopting a bullish stance on Australian equities. This compares to just 27% for the same period last year.<\/p>\n
Managers are equally bullish with respect to international equities, as the survey shows 49% are now bullish compared to 30% of managers at this time last year. Cash is the major asset class to suffer, as only 13% of managers now prefer this class compared to 52% in the December quarter of 2007.<\/p>\n
The change also reflects the perception there is now better value on offer in the Australian equity market. The group’s investment strategist Andrew Pease notes 56% of managers responding in the survey viewed Australian shares as undervalued at present. This compares to just 11% this time last year and only 16% in the June quarter of this year.<\/p>\n
Of those to respond, 32% view the market as fair value currently, while 12% continue to see the market as overvalued at present levels. In sector terms, Pease notes 47% of managers to respond are bullish on the healthcare sector, while only 8% are bearish. 46% are bullish on industrials against 23% bearish. Both the IT and telecommunications services sectors enjoy 42% bullish views, against bearish view of only 18% and 25% respectively.<\/p>\n
The listed property trust sector is also enjoying something of a return to favour, as while 45% of managers remain bearish, the number of managers with a bullish stance has risen from only 9% in the fourth quarter last year to 40% now.<\/p>\n
In contrast, the consumer discretionary products and materials sectors both fell out of favour somewhat. The former is now seeing 54% of managers taking a bearish view against 38% in the September survey. The latter experienced a 14% decline in bullish managers as well as an 8% decline in bearish managers.<\/p>\n
Smaller caps stocks have also suffered in recent months, as Pease points out only 34% of managers are now bullish on the sector. This is down from 57% in the September quarter and well below the 47% of managers that are not presently interested in investing in the sector.<\/p>\n
Opinion is far more mixed with respect to financials, as the survey shows 42% of managers are bearish on the sector, which is down from 50% this time last year. Those taking a bullish stance have increased from 19% last year to 44% now.<\/p>\n
Outside of equities there appears to be a view value is on offer in the Australian dollar, particularly against its US counterpart. The survey shows from just 9% of bullish views on the currency pair in the third quarter of this year there are now 45% of managers with a bullish outlook. This is the highest level in the history of the survey. Bearish views have fallen accordingly, from 65% in the third quarter to just 26% now.<\/p>\n
Managers are not turning strongly bullish though, in Pease’s view, as the survey shows 38% of managers remain bullish on Australian bonds. While this is down from previous levels, it does show a continued defensive approach, as until the fourth quarter of 2007, this sector had not recorded more than 20% of bullish managers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The latest survey of fund managers from Russell Investment Managers signals a more bullish outlook for both Australian and global equities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54962"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}