State Street Investor Confidence Index Drops

Global institutional investors reduced their exposure to equities at an accelerated pace in August, according to State Street, whose Investor Confidence Index based on actual portfolios of their institutional clients fell to 75.9, down 8.7 points from July's revised reading of 84.6. Waning risk appetite was registered in all three regional sub-indexes: the North America index fell 7.8 points to 72.5 while Europe fell 9.6 points to 89.0 and Asia eased 2.6 points to 91.8. Driving the risk aversion were growing concerns about the global economic slowdown amid widespread declines in global manufacturing and monetary and trade policy uncertainty.