Big investors leaving U.S. markets amid trade wars, rising U.S. debt: FT

BEIJING, June 6 (Xinhua) -- Big institutional investors are leaving the United States as U.S. administration's trade wars and the country's rapidly mounting government debt have shaken confidence in American assets, according to a Financial Times report on Thursday.

"The U.S. president's erratic trade policy has shaken global markets in recent months, sparking a sharp sell-off in the U.S. dollar and leaving Wall Street stocks lagging far behind European rivals this year," said the report posted online.

A top executive at a big American private capital firm described the White House's so-called "liberation day," when the U.S. administration unveiled sweeping tariffs on Washington's trading partners, as "a wake-up call to a lot of people that they were overweight the U.S.," leaving institutional investors reviewing the extent of their holdings in the country, it said.

The report cited Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, Canada's second-largest pension fund, as saying that it would reduce its exposure to the United States and increase investments in Britain, France and Germany.

New York-based investment firm Neuberger Berman has made 65 percent of its private equity co-investments in Europe this year, up from 20-30 percent in recent years, according to Joana Rocha Scaff, its head of European private equity.

"We have started to see the early signs of investors shifting away from the U.S.," Richard Oldfield, chief executive of UK asset manager Schroders, told the Financial Times.