Global investor confidence increased by 12.7 points to 72.9 points in February, the second successive 12-point monthly increase, according to researcher State Street Global Markets.
The increase in February, which was up from January’s level of 60.2, was driven by North American institutional investors, who posted a confidence increase of 13 points to 64.5, it found.
Elsewhere, risk appetite was somewhat more subdued, as evidenced by a decline of 3.2 points in the European Index to 69.8 and a decline in the Asian Index of 2.7 points to 83.8.
State Street associates director Paul O’Connell said the two 12-point increases is “evidence that institutional investors appear to have left behind the extreme gloom that characterised their outlook towards the end of 2008”.
“Institutional investors have been willing to add exposure across a number of the peripheral and emerging markets from which they had divested towards the end of last year.
“However, flows across developed markets remain somewhat tepid,” he said.
