Them's the breaks: UK equities still deeply unloved

Pariah asset class

Global outflows from Equity UK, Equity UK Income, and Equity UK Small & Mid Cap Funds for the first half of the year were £11.3bn. Lest we ascribe this to the effects of the bear market conditions hammering global equities this year, Equity Global Funds have taking in £31.3bn over the same period.

UK equities have been a pariah asset class for years. UK equity funds have only seen five years of net inflows in the past 15 years. In 2018, the influential global fund manager survey published by Bank of America Merrill Lynch reported that they were the most unpopular asset class: "Worse than cash," stated one journal. "There has been reported indiscriminate foreign selling of UK shares as investors have exited in favour of… well, anything that isn't a UK equity." The year of the Brexit referendum - 2016 - saw outflows of £12.3bn, only topped by last year's £17.4bn of outflows. If the ...