Bank of America: Market sentiment has shifted towards bearish due to concerns about war, but confidence index remains higher than the low point of tariff impact.

The monthly fund manager survey by Bank of America showed that in March, investor sentiment turned bearish due to concerns over the Iran war and civilian credit. However, the current confidence level is still much higher than during the tariff crisis in April 2025. Only 7% of respondents expect the global economy to strengthen, a sharp drop from 39% last month; while a net 45% of respondents expect global inflation rates to rise in the next 12 months, higher than 9% last month. Although this caused Bank of America's most widely followed investor sentiment index to drop from 8.2 to 5.6, it is still much higher than the low point of 1.8 recorded in April 2025.