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
Risk Appetite Indicator

The Risk Appetite Indicator quantifies the degree to which the trading patterns of institutional investors are risk seeking or averse, on a scale of -100% (most risk averse) to 100% (most risk seeking).

Key Facts
  • 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
Our latest report

Holdings

  • Long-term investor allocations to equities fell back  39bps to 52.7%.
  • Allocations to cash rose a similar amount (42bps) to 19.2%
  • Fixed income holdings remained largely unchanged.

RiskAppetite

  • The State Street Risk Appetite Index remained positive at 0.18 in October.
  • This was modestly less risk seeking than the 0.27 reading in September.
  • Institutional investors were well-positioned for the market exuberance and USD strength that has followed the US election result.
Risk Appetite