State Street
Institutional Investor Indicators
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.
- 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
Holdings
Long-term investor allocations to equities increased by approximately 142 basis points in July, reversing June’s modest decline. Equity allocations ended the month at 58%, while allocations to fixed income excluding bills stood at 26% and cash at 16%. July was characterized less by broad-based risk reduction and more by rotation within already elevated risky-asset positions
RiskAppetite
The State Street Risk Appetite Index declined to 0.18 in July from 0.45 in June. Although this represents a meaningful moderation from one of the strongest readings of the past four years, the index remained positive, suggesting institutional investors continued to add risk, albeit with less breadth and conviction than in the previous month.
- Fixed Income ex Bills
- Equities
- Cash
- The Institutional Investor Risk Appetite Indicator measures the buying and selling of risky assets across 22 dimensions of risk
- These range across asset classes: equities, fixed-income, cash, and foreign exchange
- Key dimensions include stock versus cash allocations, cyclical versus defensive equities, high-yield versus investment-grade corporate bonds, and US Dollar currency flows
- Released monthly
Holdings
Long-term investor allocations to equities increased by approximately 142 basis points in July, reversing June’s modest decline. Equity allocations ended the month at 58%, while allocations to fixed income excluding bills stood at 26% and cash at 16%. July was characterized less by broad-based risk reduction and more by rotation within already elevated risky-asset positions
RiskAppetite
The State Street Risk Appetite Index declined to 0.18 in July from 0.45 in June. Although this represents a meaningful moderation from one of the strongest readings of the past four years, the index remained positive, suggesting institutional investors continued to add risk, albeit with less breadth and conviction than in the previous month.
- Measures the amount of carbon exposure in institutional portfolios, in terms of aggregate portfolio emissions (tonnes of CO2 emitted) and aggregate portfolio carbon intensity (carbon efficiency, or emissions divided by million USD revenue)
- Can be broken down into regions as well as drivers (i.e., whether carbon reduction is due to company-level decisions around emissions or investor decisions to buy or sell carbon-exposed companies)
- Developed in partnership with S&P Global, a market leader in carbon data, and powered by S&P Global Sustainable1
- Released annually
Between March 2024 and March 2025, carbon risk moved in different directions according to our separate metrics of carbon risk exposure:
- The carbon emissions exposure of the aggregate institutional portfolio increased slightly, but remains below 2019 levels.
- The carbon intensity exposure of the aggregate institutional portfolio continued to fall, as companies’ revenues grew faster than their carbon emissions.
