It's Time to Protect Stock Profits, Says $338 Billion Manager

Deutsche Bank Wealth Management ($338 billion AUM) has cut equities from 50% to about 40% of its portfolio and expects that trend to gain momentum in the second half of the year. This according to an article inBloomberg.

The article reports that the firm first became cautious at the end of April, saying “markets had risen, companies’ earnings outlooks were doubtful and the U.S. China trade war wouldn’t be solved in 2019,” adding, “It turned out to be a prescient call: an index of global shares is broadly flat since then.”

In an interview with Bloomberg, Deutche Bank Wealth’s Global Chief Investment Officer Christian Nolting said, “What I don’t want to see in the second half is we lose all the performance. We are still in profit-taking mode,” he said, noting that valuations have expanded but earnings have not.

According to Nolting, the bank is channeling some profits into investment-grade corporate debt and currency bonds of developing countries as well as into European “crossover paper”–securities that offer higher yields than investment grade products with less credit risk than their “junk” counterparts.