Lloyds Bank' index also found cash was on the rise due to geopolitical uncertainty.

Overall across 11 asset classes, UK investor sentiment rose in October, up by 0.49 per cent to 4.27 per cent, despite prominent geopolitical distractions, according to Lloyds Bank’s investor sentiment index.

However, it was a month to forget for all four UK asset classes surveyed, with UK property (down 2.33 per cent), UK corporate bonds (down 1.92 per cent), UK government bonds (down 1.13 per cent), and UK shares (down 1.04 per cent) all taking a hit. 

Cash saw the biggest increase in asset classes this month, which rose 10.81 per cent to -25.08 per cent. The second biggest increase was emerging markets shares, which saw an increase by 2.8 per cent to rise to 20.46 per cent.

According to Lloyds, the move into cash suggests investors are looking for more safe havens in the face of perceived geopolitical uncertainty both at home, and abroad.

This also was backed-up by the score for Gold, which continues to attract the highest overall sentiment, (44.39 per cent). Lloyds Private Banking considers anything near or over 40 per cent to be extreme.

The eurozone saw a rise both in sentiment (up 33.75 per cent) and performance (up 26.9 per cent). The various elections held across Europe recently, such as in Germany in September, which saw the far-right increase a share of the vote, have seemingly done little to dampen investor appetite.

US shares saw the biggest drop in sentiment in October (a 2.45 per cent dip, from -2.17 per cent to -4.62 per cent) and are now at their lowest ebb since February this year. Japanese shares also took a small dip during October, with a drop by 2.12 per cent to 4.22 per cent in the index. 

“It might be the month for Halloween but our October sentiment reading suggests that investors are hard to spook!,” said Markus Stadlmann, chief investment officer at Lloyds Private Banking. “The ‘yo-yo’ nature of our tracker this year may well be eye-catching but the bigger story is that despite all the mounting geopolitical ‘noise’ out there, sentiment is actually higher now than at this time last year."

“Whilst it’s still too early to call, it is looking increasingly likely that the ISI success story for 2017 will be Eurozone equities. Despite a small drop in popularity this month, the overall sentiment recovery (versus 2016) and the performance returns of Eurozone equities (in 2017), has been incredible to watch. The opposite is true for UK assets, which collectively leave room for improvement," he added.