BofA's August Fund Manager Survey: Investor Sentiment Hits Third-Most-Bullish Level Since 2022
Bank of America's August 2026 Global Fund Manager Survey shows investor sentiment surged to its third most bullish reading since 2022, extending a trend that has now seen two consecutive months of strengthening risk appetite among global allocators Investing.com.
The August result builds on the July survey, reported July 14, 2026, in which global investors turned most bullish since February 2026 Reuters. In that July survey, cash allocations fell to an "uber-low" of 3.6%, down from 4.1% in June — a 50-basis-point drop in a single month. Bank of America's own characterization of the cash level as "uber-low" signals positioning well below historical norms, consistent with a cohort rotating out of defensive balances and into risk assets.
The trajectory matters for positioning-conscious readers. A 3.6% average cash weighting is the kind of level that historically correlates with compressed risk premiums and thinner dry powder available for incremental buying. When cash buffers are this low, the marginal dollar supporting equities has to come from reallocation rather than new inflows — a structurally more fragile demand base.
The driver behind the July shift was an easing of trade-related risk. Fund managers became more bullish as the trade threat receded, with cash allocations remaining low while investors maintained overweight equity positions, according to the Bank of America survey Trustnet. The August survey's further surge in sentiment suggests that risk re-rating continued as those trade concerns faded further into the rearview mirror.
Layering the data points chronologically: February 2026 marked a prior bullish peak. Sentiment then moderated through the spring before the July survey captured a sharp swing back to those February levels. August pushed further still, landing in the top three bullish readings in the post-2022 series — a period spanning roughly four years of survey data and encompassing the full arc from the 2022 bear market through the subsequent recovery.
The pace of the sentiment shift is notable. Two monthly surveys have now produced two consecutive bullish accelerations, with cash allocations moving from 4.1% to an "uber-low" 3.6% in July and the August reading extending the directional move into the top-three bracket since 2022. For allocators who use the survey as a contrarian indicator, this is the zone where the crowd becomes the trade. Elevated bullishness at these levels has, in past cycles, coincided with near-term equity drawdowns — though whether that pattern repeats depends on macroeconomic conditions that the survey itself does not capture.
What the survey does capture is positioning, not conviction in the fundamental sense. Fund managers reporting low cash and overweight equities are describing their current portfolio state, not making a forecast. The bullishness is a snapshot of allocations already deployed. The risk for markets is not that sentiment is wrong per se; it is that sentiment this elevated leaves limited room for incremental positioning to drive prices higher, while simultaneously creating a larger pool of coordinated exposure should a catalyst trigger de-risking.
The August reading, third most bullish since 2022, places the current cohort in rarefied territory across a series that spans multiple macroeconomic regimes. Whether that proves prescient or premature is a question the next survey cycle will begin to answer.
