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

  • Institutional investors' allocation to cash has increased a little (55bps) during August, but remains not far from long-term averages
  • Institutional investors have responded to the sharp sell off in equity market in early August by reducing their allocations to stocks, despite the equity rally in the second half of the month.
  • Institutional investors' allocation to bonds has also come down.

RiskAppetite

  • The State Street Risk Appetite Index picked up modestly at the end of August after a cautious start of the month.
  • August started with the biggest spike in volatility all year and institutional investors were quick to respond – selling risky stocks, currencies and switching from stocks to cash.
  • This bout of risk aversion did not last as the market quickly re-priced the Fed’s rate cutting cycle. Risky assets recovered their losses, while institutional investors started dipping their toes back into risk trades.
Risk Appetite