Nearly two-thirds of institutional investors expect Portugal or Ireland to restructure its public debt, according to a survey by Barclays Capital of 700 institutional clients .
Four in ten think that at least one country will leave the euro-zone this year. That’s down from almost half in Barclay’s December survey but still a level Barclay’s describes as “uncomfortably high.”
Despite these worries, respondents are not preparing for a global financial crisis.
“Importantly, though, these euro area concerns are not expected to have a global impact. Most respondents believing the restructuring would have limited market consequences,” Barclays writes in its note.
This could explain why the investors surveyed by Barclays are pretty confident. Thirty-seven view equities as likely to be the strongest performing asset class, with only 18 percent seeing credit as the strongest. That’s a pretty dramatic turnaround from December, when the numbers were the inverse: 34 percent saw credit as strongest, and 19 percent equities.
Unfortunately, it’s not clear whether the results of this survey do a very good job of predicting what will actually happen in the markets.
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