Global Investing

Good news and bad in the latest  investor confidence sounding from State Street. The overall index took a dive again — third month in a row — and is now barely above neutral. That’s the bad news if you are keen to see risk assets do well.

The good news is that despite three months of falling the index is still above 100, showing that risk appetite remains present among the U.S. financial services firm’s institutional investor cllients, albeit only just.

But add to that State Street’s findings that the fall in its global index was almost entirely due to Asian investors. The regional indices for North America and Europe both rose.

So heading into the last month of the year, with questions lingering about the state of the world economy and a strong desire among many to lock in this year’s profits, investors are still relatively bullish.

Will it last?