He said, in an environment where there was increasing “doom and gloom” from central bankers, “One could be forgiven for questioning the continued upward trajectory of investment markets. After several false starts, is it now finally the right time to de-risk the portfolio?”

He said work done by MJW six months ago showed fund managers’ cash balances creeping up and allocation to growth dropping.

While that could not be said to be de-risking at an individual level, he said, in aggregate, it seemed to be what was happening.

But he said it highlighted the difficulty in getting market timing right.

“That’s the wrong decision over the past 12 months.”

But he said fund managers and investors still had a tendency to try to time markets. They were more likely to remember the successful calls they had made than those where they had been wrong, he said, and when they still managed a positive return any bad calls were seen as “not so bad”. “They don’t think about the money left on the table.”

There were more commentators peddling a bearish story than a bullish one, he said, which could drive the sentiment to pull back from the market.

“It’s nice to be able to portray yourself as a conservative and downside-focused, risk-cognisant person.”

But he said that could mean the investors would miss out.

“There’s potential for people to be underinvested. We argue that a well-diversified strategic asset allocation with a robust review process will better serve most investors.

“We are conscious that this will not be without volatility. A typical balanced fund should expect a negative return one year in five. However, picking the timing of this is fraught with difficulty and many would be better served by taking the longer-term view and riding through the volatility.”