Aug'23 Bank of America Fund Manager Survey

Believe it or not, investors are still positioned for a hard landing or at least a significant underperformance of the US economy while we're seeing clear signs of a cyclical impulse.

Check out my interview with Vinny Sottile on my Tesla 2030 EPS and valuation scenario.

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Bank of America runs a big monthly survey among institutional investors. The August 2023 version was published yesterday and covered 211 fund managers with $545bn assets under management. You might have noticed that I like this indicator a lot because it is a fairly representative sample that allows for insights not just into investor sentiment, but in fact into actual positioning.

Over the past month, investors have somewhat reduced the significant portfolio imbalances that have been so persistent this year. But they remain positioned for a hard landing (or at least a significant underperformance) of the US economy that would manifest itself with falling bond yields, poor stock market returns and an underperformance of US risk assets in general. I remain firmly on the other side of this bet. Not just because of this fund manager survey, but certainly in part due to the signals it sends.