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 and cash fell by 0.2 percentage points each to 53.3% and 18.7% respectively.
  • Cash holdings are now back to their long-run average.
  • Fixed income holdings rose 0.4 percentage points to 27.9%, the biggest monthly rise in fixed income allocations since March 2023.

RiskAppetite

  • Institutional investor risk appetite moderated in April, led by a surge in demand for the US dollar.
  • Risk appetite in equities was more mixed, with weaker demand for high beta stocks, including tech, offset by firmer demand for emerging markets.
  • Even though investors returned to fixed income as a whole in April, demand was concentrated in Treasuries.
Risk Appetite