BofA Securities has released its Global Fund Manager Survey for April 2025. Despite the recent recovery in stocks, the data looks rather negative even as some investors are hoping that the bounce may hold for a return to normalcy. And after years of holding U.S. stocks, foreign investors appear to be blowing out of their U.S. financial holdings. Or are they really?
Before investors hit the panic-button, this survey was conducted at the peak of the panic selling when the markets were facing extreme volatility shifts. A second issue worth consideration is that it was not the largest group of respondents as far as surveys go.
According to the BofA research department, April was listed as the fifth most bearish Fund Manager Survey that has been seen in the last 25 years. It was also the fourth highest reading in the last 20 years for recession expectations — with a record number of global investors intending to cut their positions in U.S. stocks.
While the Fund Manager Survey comes with some benchmarking, the report showed that 82% of respondents are expecting the global economy to weaken. That 82% reading is shown to be a 30-year high. There were also some 42% of respondents saying a recession is likely.
And for inflation, this is now the highest since June of 2021. The probability of a hard landing rose to 49%, with 37% expecting a soft landing and 3% in the “no” landing category. The good news — some 41% of investors are now predicting 3 or more interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve. The bad news — those expected rate cuts are based on expectations of a sharp deterioration of liquidity conditions.
What about gold as a safety haven? The number-one crowded traded at the moment is the “long gold” strategy at 49% of respondents. The next most crowded traded was not “long Mag 7” for the first time since March of 2023.
And with the number-one tail risk as “trade war = recession,” 73% of respondents have said that the so-called “U.S. exceptionalism” has peaked. The survey’s outlook also sees the U.S. dollar and U.S. profits having the worst rating since 2006-2007. Here were some notes on allocations:
- record increase in bond allocation,
- global equity allocation lowest since July 2023,
- U.S. stock allocation sees the largest 2-month drop ever,
- investors most underweight cyclicals versus defensives since May-2020,
- industrials are now the most underweight since August-2011,
- technology is the most underweight since November-2022),
- banks, discretionary, add utilities are the most overweight since December 2008.
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There were 42% of respondents saying that gold would be the strongest performing asset class in 2025, with cash and government bonds as the next best assets classes tied at 18% each. Only 11% expect global equities to be the best asset class, followed by 5% predicting U.S. equities and 3% calling Bitcoin to be the best performing asset class in 2025.
While the Global Fund Manager Survey may sound like everyone included all at once, the survey group is actually small relative to large asset managers. The survey period was done from April 4 to April 10, during the peak of the selling panic. It is also based on 195 panelists who have $444 billion in assets under management. Of that group, the firm received 164 who participated who manage $386 billion — and only 106 participants with $204 billion in assets responded to the regional questions in the fund survey.
This particular survey sure doesn’t look and feel reassuring. Then again, it’s a small sample for statistical significance and the survey results were coming in at the “peak panic” period in April.
