FTAlphavilleFT Alphaville is a 2008 Webby Award Winner

• News
• Markets Live

The FT’s “The Short View” columnist John Authers is blogging for FT Alphaville from Vancouver at the annual gathering of the CFA Institute:

One more finding from the poll of CFAs at this week’s Vancouver gathering suggests that they’re still not ripe to make big contrarian plays. There is so much disagreement about where assets should be allocated at present that contrarians do not have a consensus to play against. All the CFAs were asked whether they were advising clients to increase or decrease their holdings in a range of asset classes to deal with the current market environment. The closest approaches to “consensus” plays are that you should not reduce cash (only 16 per cent agree with that) or alternative investments (only 15 per cent propose that) or raise fixed income (proposed by 17 per cent).

On equities, 29 per cent are bulls, calling to increase weightings, and 26 per cent are bears wanting to cut – within the statistical margin of error. There is similar indecision over commodities, the asset class of the moment – 26 per cent want to raise their allocations, and 20 per cent suggest reducing them. Professionals are as confused as everyone else, it appears, by the phenomenal run-up in oil and food prices.

Clients might complain that their managers are not giving them clear guidance. But at least one measure suggests that CFAs have kept their cool, and are satisified that they had it right heading into the critis. For all of the asset classes - equities, fixed income, alternative investments, commodities, or cash - the single most popular option was “no change.”