A survey of US money managers shows enthusiasm for equities remains

We've recently added a new survey of US investor sentiment to the CEIC platform. It's showing that even as the tech-driven bull run continues, risk managers continue to stay invested in stocks.

The National Association of Active Investment Managers (NAAIM) produces an indicator called the Exposure Index, which polls its members to determine the proportion of customers' portfolios allocated to stocks.

The Exposure Index stood at 85.44 for the week of June 26, virtually unchanged from the previous week. (A reading of 100 means a portfolio is fully invested in equities; a reading of zero means it's 100% cash, or hedged to be market neutral. Readings outside that range are also possible: negative values indicate a manager is short the market, while 200 would be a leveraged bet on equities.)

Over the longer term, our chart shows how higher values for the Exposure Index are associated with market peaks; lower values are correlated with market bottoms.

A great deal of the optimism might be attributed to the anticipation of a rate cut in 2024, although the US Fed indicated that it wants to see a more sustained deceleration of price growth before easing its monetary policy. Next Fed meeting is in the end of July.

Amid optimism about a Federal Reserve rate cut later this year, the S&P 500 closed above 5,500 for the first time this week. Chair Jerome Powell, who has said he wanted to see more sustained deceleration of price growth before loosening policy, recently noted that the Fed has made progress on that goal.

Explore more data:

United States Business Surveys

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