A poll by the private bank of UK-listed Lloyds Banking Group shows investors have swung sharply negative towards eurozone shares, preferring the comforts of home assets instead.

A survey published by the private bank of UK-listed Lloyds Banking Group showed, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the sharpest fall in sentiment to any region happened over the eurozone in September, a region where economic growth has stalled.

The single currency bloc expanded by 0.7 per cent in the 12 months to the end of July, with the entire European Union (of 28 nations) expanding 1.2 per cent. The move has prompted the European Central Bank to loosen monetary policy yet further.

Against that background, the Lloyds Bank Private Banking Investor Sentiment Index registered that attitudes towards the eurozone were firmly negative, at -28 per cent, a fall of seven percentage points from the previous snapshot.

On the other hand, sterling-denominated investments were favoured far more, it said. UK Property is now reading a net positive sentiment score of 38 per cent and UK equities are at 33 per cent. This compares to emerging markets, a distant third-largest in terms of asset class consumer confidence, at 16 per cent. In addition, UK government Bonds have seen the biggest year-on-year increase with an 11 percentage point swing, while UK shares benefitted from a nine percentage point positive swing, the survey showed.

“This positive change in investor sentiment can very likely be attributed to the recovery of the UK economy over the past 12 months, the outlook and perception of which has changed dramatically over the last several months,” the bank said.

Net sentiment is a statistic showing the difference between those who hold a positive view and those who hold a negative view each month on the outlook for each type of investment over the next six months. All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov .  Total sample size was 4,307 adults of which 1,233 adults were investors. Fieldwork was undertaken between 28 August and 1 September 2014.