(Bloomberg) - This week’s sudden stock market pullback might be catching a lot of investors off guard.
Fund managers were the most bullish since July 2021 while protection against a stock correction had tumbled to an eight-year low, according to a survey from Bank of America Corp. conducted before the weekend’s escalations over Greenland.
A net 38% of respondents in the January poll expected stronger global growth, surging from the month prior, strategists led by Michael Hartnett wrote in a note. Cash levels have tumbled to a record low while equity allocation climbed to the highest since December 2024 with 48% of managers overweight. That boosted the survey’s sentiment measure to the highest in over four years.
The findings also pushed BofA’s Bull and Bear indicator to a “hyper-bull” level, which indicates investors need to load up on risk hedges and safe havens. Instead, nearly half of participants said they do not have protection against a sharp fall in equity prices, the highest level since 2018.
“Low levels of stock market hedging are irrelevant in a world of positive surprises,” Hartnett said. “But it matters greatly if surprises suddenly turn greatly.”
Investors ran into one of those surprises over the weekend after the poll was conducted when President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs on eight European countries that have opposed his demand for Denmark to hand over Greenland to the US. The renewed rhetoric of a trade war dented risk appetite. European stocks slid over the past two days while US equity futures slide before cash trading resumes after a holiday on Monday.
The survey showed investors consider geopolitical conflict as the biggest risk to financial markets for the first time since October 2024, putting worries around a potential AI bubble in second place.
The BofA survey was conducted between Jan. 9 and Jan. 15, and canvassed 196 participants with $575 billion in assets under management.
By Levin Stamm
With assistance from Michael Msika
