Investing.com – UK assets have been in the spotlight of late, and given this uncertainty prompted Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) to poll investors for their views, intentions, and positioning on UK assets.
“Overall, the survey was encouraging in that a high proportion of surveyed investors are keeping UK assets on the radar with the potential to add in the future,” said analysts at Morgan Stanley, in a note dated Jan. 14.
Encouragingly, the survey showed a skew to keeping UK assets ‘on the radar’ or buying near-term, as opposed to selling incrementally on the back of recent developments, the bank said.
That said, the skew to buying was greatest among those that are already overweight/net long UK assets in our survey sample, whilst those with neutral exposure were the most prone to keep UK assets on the radar for now.
The most popular catalysts to trigger polled investors to buy back GBP-exposed assets would be a period of market stability or meaningful announcement on fiscal tightening, he bank added.
US/RoW investors, as well as investors with light or no UK asset exposure in our survey, were the most likely to select meaningful fiscal tightening as a key catalyst that could trigger them to buy.
Investors the bank surveyed were most interested in incrementally buying the UK’s global stocks/sectors, followed by UK banks. Interestingly, US/RoW-based investors surveyed showed a skew to incremental interest in UK Real Estate, and Europe ex UK-based investors to UK Banks.
Additionally, the investors the bank surveyed showed a skew to expecting slightly more BoE rate cuts vs market pricing. This skew was somewhat greater among US/RoW investors.