A survey of CFA members in the UK finds they think the corporate bond market is at the most expensive level since 2011.

A survey by the CFA Society of the UK finds that members increasingly regard corporate bonds as expensive, with more of them taking this view than at any time in the past five years. 

A survey by the organisation, which has around 11,500 members, showed the perception of corporate bonds as overvalued continued to climb. Some 82 per cent of those polled between 10 February and 7 March said the asset class is overcooked, a rise of 4 per cent from the previous survey three months earlier. A total of 219 CFA members responded to the survey.

Similarly, government bonds continue to be widely viewed as overvalued, with 78 per cent holding this view.

Though perceptions of equities being overvalued fell slightly over the quarter, developed market stocks continue to be viewed by the majority of respondents as overvalued (68 per cent), whereas around half of respondents consider emerging market equities to be undervalued (48 per cent).

Gold saw a marked fall in the proportion of respondents that view the asset class as overvalued, from 32 per cent at the end of 2016 to 24 per cent in the first quarter of 2017. Of all the asset classes, the greatest number of those polled (46 per cent) believe the “safe haven” asset to be fairly valued.

“Despite some volatility over the past quarter, bond yields are pretty much as they were when we polled members at the end of last year. It appears that respondents find that somewhat surprising given the sense that growth and inflation are accelerating and that central banks are signalling strongly or weakly that interest rate-setting is entering a period of normalisation – for which read that rates will rise,” said Will Goodhart, chief executive of CFA UK.

“Emerging markets equities have had good support over the past quarter, but respondents seem to believe that they may have further to run,” he added.