The number of investment professionals who believe emerging market equities offer value has fallen while sentiment for gold has risen.
CFA UK said there had been a 7% drop in the proportion of its surveyed members who thought emerging market shares offered value.
Although 36% still thought the shares were undervalued, this proportion had fallen 5%.
The survey – which reflects sentiment in the fourth quarter of 2017, with the results released this week – also showed that developed market equities continued to be considered overvalued by the vast majority of investors (73%).
At the same time, confidence in gold has increased, the results indicate with 74% of those surveyed considering gold to be either fairly valued or undervalued, compared to 69% in the previous quarter.
The result may reflect a significant drop of more than $90 in gold’s value since the last CFA UK Valuations Index in Q3 2017.
Will Goodhart, chief executive of CFA UK, said respondents to the survey were “still worried”.
“The increased interest in gold suggests that respondents are looking for a store of value should their fears be realised, though it’s also important to recall that our survey ran late last year, a time when the gold price had fallen steadily for a quarter and was starting to run back up.
“Overall, our survey suggests that while market returns remain impressive, so too do the anxiety levels about the sustainability of those returns. For the time being at least, we go on climbing the wall of worry.”
The survey had 207 respondents.
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