UK - Balanced pension funds reached a new low in UK equity weighting in July as managers sought to move money out of listed stocks, the latest figures from CAPS indicate.

BNY Mellon's CAPS service revealed in its latest monthly figures the average equity weighting of UK balanced pooled pension funds dropped to its lowest level ever of 45.1% in July 2007 as a result of poor performance and moves by managers to shift assets out of the sector.

Some of these assets were moved into cash and UK bonds - cash in particular seeing a 0.9% rise in allocation - but longer-held index-linked gilts, overseas bonds and property holdings remained static.

At the same time, CAPS figures reveal balanced funds achieved a median negative return of -2.3% in July compared with -1% in June, largely because losses on equities - both UK and overseas - were higher than the 2.8% return on index-linked government bonds.

Active UK equity managers generated a negative return of -3.3%, net of fees albeit this matched the FTSE All-Share index, while North American equity managers achieved a negative return of -4.4% compared with -4.1% on the index and European (ex-UK) equity saw a negative return of -3.1%.

The CAPS monthly study is based on a representative sample of UK pension funds and reviews over £421bn (€600bn) in balanced and specialist pooled pension funds.