But they remain cautious, in most cases lifting their allocation to American equities by only a couple of percentage points.
Pension funds have increased their allocation to property, retail investors are starting to take an interest, and foreign money continues to pour in.
Investors could reduce their allocation to bonds and bond funds over all, or shift from funds with longer-maturity bonds to funds that buy only short-term ones.
If the world's biggest investors increased their allocation to such bonds by just a little, it could easily drive yields down.
According to a study earlier this year by Greenwich Associates, about one-third of institutional investors in America plan to increase their allocation to such funds.
Two of the firms advise clients to increase their allocation to American shares substantially, while four say that it is time to take profits.
Ms Patel says: "It will take some years before investors are confident enough to increase their allocation to these specialist funds".
But I believe such experiments should be reviewed carefully to understand the flaws and then modified to operate within both phases: the initial process of distributing refugees to camps upon their arrival and then their allocation to a new home.
A survey of pension-fund managers by Citigroup, published this week, found that 85% of them plan to raise their allocation to "alternative" assets over the next three years, despite the market turmoil.
Michael Sonnenfeldt, who became wealthy in real estate before starting Tiger 21, said a poll of the group's 192 members after the second quarter found that, on average, they had increased their allocation to private equity by four percentage points.
Towers Watson, a consultancy to pension funds, says its clients have doubled their allocation to the sector over the past year.The third trend behind commoditisation is the steady rise of defined-contribution (DC) corporate pensions.
