State Street Institutional
Investor Indicators
Investment insights based on facts, not surveys

The State Street Institutional Investor Indicators provide investors, policymakers, and the public with insights into the aggregated and anonymized positioning, risk appetite, and portfolio carbon exposures of thousands of institutional investors around the world, representing trillions of dollars in assets.

State Street Institutional Investor
Holdings Indicator

The Holdings Indicator tracks the aggregated portfolio holdings of institutional investors across stocks, bonds, and cash in percentage terms.

Key Facts
  • The Institutional Investor Holdings Indicator measures the broad asset allocations of institutional investors to cash, stocks, and bonds
  • During times of market stress, cash allocations tend to rise while stock allocations tend to fall
  • When short-term interest rates are relatively high, cash holdings tend to rise relative to bonds
  • Released monthly
Our latest report

Holdings

  • The State Street Holdings Indicators showed that long-term investor allocations to equities rose by 1.2 percentage points to 52.8%.
  • Cash holdings fell by almost a percentage point in February and are now only 1% above their long-run average suggesting investors’ ‘dry powder’ is rapidly running out.

  • Institutional investor equity holdings are now at a seven-month high and are only a percentage point below their highest reading in a decade.

RiskAppetite

  • The State Street Risk Appetite Index rebounded to 0.18 from -0.09 revealing an improvement in risk bias across the month of February.
  • After a cautious start to the year predicated by volatility in interest rate markets, institutional investors rediscovered their appetite for risky assets in February.
  • Fading hopes of imminent reductions from the Fed are now having a diminishing impact on investor sentiment, which moved firmly back into positive territory in February.

Holdings
  • Fixed Income ex Bills
  • Equities
  • Cash