He is comparatively underinvested in banks, he added, and has trimmed exposure to technology.
Under Mr. Hester, the Royal Bank of Scotland has been slashing assets, reducing costs and trimming exposure to riskier trading activity over the last four years.
Predicted housing meltdown, trimmed exposure to mortgage-backed securities.
Because rating agencies still give top marks to the world's biggest economies, when the fund trims exposure to the AAA-rated U.S. and U.K., it takes a credit-quality hit.
Other analysts pointed also to a lingering effect from the recommendation on Tuesday by Abby Joseph Cohen, the influential Goldman , Sachsstrategist, that investors trim their exposure to stocks and hold as much as 15percentt cash.
Liz Ann Sonders: Trim when exposure in portfolios have gotten out of whack on the upside; add when it's the opposite.
But Lehman also said that it has trimmed its exposure to those products a bit.
For American investors who have trimmed their exposure to Europe, the more pressing threats comes from the American political scene.
But despite these concerns, relatively few investors are trying to reduce risk by selling stock or trimming their exposure to the market, the survey said.
But while high-yield, or junk, bonds helped the fund considerably, the fund's managers are already trimming their exposure to the sector because they think that it is now overpriced, said Thomas Atteberry, the assistant portfolio manager of the fund.
