What bubble? Asset managers in risk-on mode stick with stocks

There’s a time when investments run their course and the prudent move is to cash out. For global asset managers who’ve ridden double-digit gains in equities for three straight years, that time is not now.

“Our expectation of solid growth and easier monetary and fiscal policies supports a risk-on tilt in our multi-asset portfolios. We remain overweight stocks and credit,” said Sylvia Sheng, global multi-asset strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management.

“We are playing the powerful trends in place and are bullish through the end of next year,” said David Bianco, Americas chief investment officer at DWS. “For now we are not contrarians.”

“Start the year with sufficient exposure, even over-exposure to equities, predominantly in emerging market equities,” said Nannette Hechler-Fayd’herbe, EMEA chief investment officer at Lombard Odier. “We don’t expect a recession in 2026 to unfold.”

Those assessments came from Bloomberg News interviews with 39 investment managers across the US, Asia and Europe, including at BlackRock Inc., Allianz Global Investors, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Franklin Templeton.

More than three-quarters of the allocators were positioning portfolios for a risk-on environment through 2026. The thrust of ...