While cash balances were down to 5.1% from a 15 year-high of 5.6% in February, the survey found a strong rotation of positioning into industrials, energy, materials and emerging markets.
Surprisingly, however, the most crowded trades during the month were short emerging markets, long the dollar and short oil, suggesting many remain troubled by the risk-on call, particularly in resources.
“We always believed that the oil price needs to reset higher, and have never been hugely short or exposed to the bounce and potentially missing it,” says Andrew Herberts, head of private investment management at Thomas Miller Investment.
“However, once we have confidence that we have some kind of supply/demand balance or a prospect of that, then we will play it.
“However, we won’t go directly into commodities, but rather into oil & service names in UK equities, and that’s the same in the mining complex.”
Herberts points to the likes of Weir Group, Hunting and Wood Group as stocks which could potentially see a big upside.
However, in terms of emerging markets he believes there is still much resistance from wealth managers, despite cheap valuations, and Thomas Miller is one of those that has yet to bite.
