For any fund manager, holding cash in an inflationary environment is a meaningful decision. But it was interesting to see how much Asian investors were using cash, instead of other defensive assets, in their portfolios.

Amid inflation, cash is, as I’ve recently heard it called, ‘a melting ice cube’. But in recent polling at a Citywire Asia event in Singapore, some 41% of investors said cash was their ‘favoured’ asset for defensive exposure.

Delegates were asked about Asean equity markets, China, private assets and more. See the full poll results below.

Citywire followed up: how high are the cash weightings in your average clients’ balanced portfolios?

For 22% of those polled, cash made up more than a quarter of their balanced portfolio. For 83% of those polled, cash was more than 10% of the portfolios.

With the widespread degradation of assets seen over the past year, it is not news to anyone that bonds have lost their appeal as a diversifier. And sales departments will have felt there were no good news stories to tell. If this trend were to persist, the conversation would need to shift, perhaps to pushing private assets for that role – rather than returns.

But there could be one clue in the polling. Nearly half of the investors said they expected to grow their team over the coming year (38% were actively hiring experienced staff and a further 10% were taking on graduates only). Some 30% said they would wait and ‘hold fire’.

It would seem, then, that it is not all pessimism among Asia-based investors. At least someone’s business will be doing well in 2023.