Quite striking though is that the number of both buyers and sellers came down, indicating an elevated level of uncertainty, which is possibly inspired by the exceptionally low volatility on the US stock market. Even though US equity sentiment has cooled, with the number of buyers having almost halved from 43% to 25%, Danish fund buyers have a significantly more benign view on the asset class than their European peers. More US equity bulls can only be found in Germany and France.
More faith in Europe
A minority of Denmark’s fund selector community have lost confidence in European equities, but there is still a significant number of buyers around. Almost half of the country’s fund selectors are still planning to increase their allocation over the next 12 months, while only one in ten say they will reduce exposure.
The continued interest in European equities is not that surprising though, as Danish fund buyers only started to massively overweight EU stocks early this year. Like their Swedish and to a certain extent also their Norwegian counterparts, they prefer allocating relatively larger parts of their portfolios to non-European equities.