BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A $1 trillion global emergency package to stabilize the euro unleashed a spectacular rally in European stocks and bonds on Monday but analysts said EU leaders had only bought time to tackle deep-seated fiscal problems.

The “shock and awe” rescue plan — the biggest since G20 leaders threw money at the global economy following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 — triggered the biggest one-day rise in European shares in 17 months after panic selling last week.

The package of standby funds and loan guarantees that could be tapped by euro zone governments shut out of credit markets, plus central bank liquidity measures and bond purchases to steady markets surprised financial analysts by its sheer scale.

The euro rose as much as 3 percent after weeks of draining confidence and financial shares were among the biggest gainers, along with the bonds of Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, pejoratively nicknamed the PIGS by traders.

For the first time in six months of a deepening debt crisis that began in Greece, European leaders appeared to have got ahead of the curve with decisive action, analysts said.

“The euro zone is certainly regaining confidence,” European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told reporters hours after EU finance ministers clinched agreement early on Monday as Asian markets opened.

“This morning’s agreement will ensure that any attempt to weaken the stability of the euro will fail,” Barroso said.

But the deal left many longer-term questions about whether Europe’s weakest economies can manage their debt and how the European Union can develop more coherent economic and fiscal policies to underpin the single currency.

The European Central Bank immediately began implementing its part of a deal hammered out among EU finance ministers, central bankers and the IMF, with euro zone central banks buying government bonds in the open market.

ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet denied that the bank had acted under pressure from euro zone leaders, whom he met at a summit on Friday as interbank lending showed signs of freezing in an ominous throwback to the 2008 Lehman crisis. Only the day before, Trichet had denied the bank had even discussed buying government bonds.

“We are fiercely and totally independent. This decision is the decision of the Governing Council and not the result of any kind of pressure of any sort,” Trichet said in Basel on Monday.

CONCERTED ACTION

The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares surged by 6.4 percent by 1315 GMT (9:15 a.m. EDT), after falling 8.9 percent last week to a seven-month low on Friday.

Risk premiums on peripheral euro zone sovereign bonds plummeted, as did the price of insuring them against default on the volatile credit default swap market, while German bund futures tumbled by a two full percentage points as investors sold safe-haven debt.

“The EU has taken a decisive action to stamp out the speculative attack against the euro and this should be sufficient to bring some calm into the market,” said Klaus Wiener, head of research at Generali Investments.

The deal won global endorsement from the Group of Eight and G20 major economies. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Beijing would support actions to help Greece overcome its sovereign debt crisis, state media reported.

Germany and the Netherlands, sticklers for budget discipline, insisted the rescue programme was linked to the same kind of draconian austerity measures already imposed on Greece.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who for months resisted pressure to aid Athens over a debt crisis that eventually sent market tremors around the world, said the measures were necessary to guarantee the future of the euro.

“This package serves to strengthen and protect our common currency,” she told reporters in Berlin. “We are protecting people’s money in Germany.

Merkel consented to the massive plan only after her center-right coalition lost a regional election on Sunday and U.S. President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy telephoned her to ensure Europe would take the necessary steps to support the euro and keep global liquidity flowing.

A German government spokesman stressed the EU was not turning into a “fiscal transfer union” and it was possible that not all member states would take part in bilateral aid.

Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager told parliament in a letter that Spain and Portugal had made a commitment to cut their budgets substantially in 2010 and 2011 as a condition for the safety net. Spain said it had no intention of drawing on the funds.

Britain, which is not in the euro and has a caretaker government following an inconclusive general election last week, said it would not participate in the rescue or loan guarantees.

CONCERTED ACTION

In concerted action, the U.S. Federal Reserve reopened currency swap lines with several central banks to try to assure markets of dollar liquidity and the ECB said it would buy government debt to steady investor nerves.

That decision, urgently sought by anxious European banks, reversed a long-standing reluctance to use what many economists call the “nuclear option” under market pressure.

Skeptics questioned whether the euro zone could hold together over the long term and buttress a fragile currency union with stronger political and fiscal instruments.

Former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff told BBC radio that weak euro zone economies such as Greece and possibly Spain and Portugal would still have to restructure their debts to make them sustainable, despite vehement official denials.

The emergency measures are worth much more than any previous attempt by the 27-nation European Union or the 16-state single-currency group to calm markets.

They agreement was reached after the crisis over debt-laden Greece drove sovereign debt yields and insurance on this debt to record levels, which Sweden’s finance minister blamed on the “wolfpack behaviours” of financial markets.

The $1 trillion package consists of 440 billion euros in guarantees from euro area states, plus 60 billion euros in a European stabilization fund that could be disbursed to help euro zone states if needed on strict austerity conditions.

EU finance ministers said the International Monetary Fund would contribute up to 250 billion euros, taking the total to 750 billion euros, or around $1 trillion.

(Additional reporting by Krista Hughes and Sven Egeter in Basel, Jeremy Gaunt, William James in London, Marcin Grajewski in Brussels, Sarah Marsh and Dave Graham in Berlin; Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

feeds.reuters.com

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece readied severe austerity measures Thursday to secure a multi-billion euro aid package needed to avoid default, providing relief to financial markets but drawing threats of a mighty battle from Greek unions.

A union official said the International Monetary Fund had asked debt-ladden Greece to raise sales taxes, scrap salary bonuses amounting to two extra months of pay in the public sector and accept a three-year pay freeze.

IMF, European Union and European Central Bank officials are in Athens to negotiate what could be the largest bailout in history and hope to wrap up a deal within days in an effort to prevent the debt crisis from sinking other fragile EU states.

But Germany has expressed deep reservations in recent weeks at the thought of handing over loans to a profligate Greece, which previously misled partners over its catastrophic finances, and is demanding fierce budget rigour in return for any cash.

“We realized we stand before a done deal,” complained Ilias Iliopoulos, general secretary of public sector union ADEDY after meeting the Greek prime minister to discuss the salvage plan.

“This will acutely burden people, and what is worse, unfairly,” he added.

Sources familiar with the talks said officials were expected to announce the details of a three-year package by Monday, ending months of uncertainty. That was enough to spark a relief rally in markets fearful of contagion across the eurozone.

The euro rose timidly, rebounding from a one-year low set the previous day, peripheral euro zone bond yield premiums eased and the cost of insuring riskier debt dropped on hopes an accord was imminent.

Crucially, German resistance appeared to weaken following a wave of dire warnings that a Greek default could sink the euro and stymie a fledgling recovery across the continent.

Germany’s largest opposition party, the Social Democrats (SPD), said it was ready to move quickly to support a Greek aid package, but said it also wanted banks to help out.

“We will do what is necessary to make up for lost time and get a quick decision in the German Bundestag next week,” SPD parliamentary leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Berlin.

CLOSING RANKS

The gravity of the Greek crisis became apparent weeks ago, but EU leaders were slow to react, promising vaguely to help but only really moving when markets dived and other heavily indebted nations, like Portugal and Spain, were threatened.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy insisted Thursday that France and Germany were working in tandem to resolve the crisis.

“We’re in perfect agreement,” he said during a trip to China, adding that Greece’s economic plan was “perfectly credible.”

However, it remained to be seen whether Greece’s powerful trade unions and army of public sector workers were ready to accept the bitter medicine being prepared for them.

Unions have called a series of strikes in the days ahead, potentially complicating efforts to drive through fresh cuts. A protest rally Tuesday drew about 2,000 people.

“It’s a disaster! The government has crossed the line. We can’t live this way,” said Despina Spanou, member of public sector union ADEDY’s board. “We will fight these measures with all our might, because this is a battle for survival.”

Opinion polls show most Greeks object to the involvement of the EU and IMF and two thirds believe there will be unrest.

But local markets appeared confident the deal would work. The Athens bourse’s banking index jumped 13.09 percent, rebounding from losses incurred in the previous days and the general Athens index gained 7.14 percent.

German politicians have said the package could be worth 100-120 billion euros ($133-160 billion) over three years against an original plan for 45 billion euros of aid in 2010.

Some of the money will come from the IMF but the bulk would have to come from other euro zone countries, many of them struggling with their own spiraling deficits, and it wasn’t clear how they would finance such a deal.

TIME FOR A RETHINK

Concerns over the Greek crisis prompted global investors to cut back holdings of euro zone government bonds, although no such flight has yet to occur with the region’s stocks, Reuters polls showed.

ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet called Thursday not just for a deal on Greece, but also a revamp of Europe’s fiscal rules and more intense surveillance of governments’ finances.

“The weak points of past multilateral surveillance will be corrected, and the Stability and Growth Pact will be reinforced and rigorously applied in its letter and in its spirit,” Trichet said in a speech at the Munich Economic Summit.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s cut Spain’s credit rating Wednesday, a day after downgrading Portugal and slashing Greece to junk status.

Spooked by the cut, Portugal announced it would speed up its austerity strategy and said this might allow it to reduce its deficit more than expected in 2010.

Meanwhile, a successful Italian bond sale seen as the first of the euro zone peripheral issuers to be tested after the S&P downgrades may have eased fears of a contagion.

“This is a big vote of confidence from the market,” Peter Chatwell, Rate Strategist at Credit Agricole, said.

For other stories, click

(Additional reporting by Dave Graham in Berlin, Jo Winterbottom in Milan, Jason Hovet in Prague, Renee Maltezou in Athens)

(Writing by Crispian Balmer/Noah Barkin/Ralph Boulton; Editing by Janet McBride)

feeds.reuters.com

ATHENS/LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) – Uncertainty over an aid package for Greece pushed up its borrowing costs to a 12-year high on Monday, with demands from Germany for further austerity measures before aid is granted heightening the tension.

Germany

Greece tried to reassure investors on Sunday that aid would arrive in time to avert the euro zone’s first sovereign debt default, despite signs that a 45 billion-euro ($60.49 billion) EU-International Monetary Fund package would have to be bigger.

But the premium investors demand to buy Greek government bonds rather than euro zone benchmark Bunds hit a new 12-year high on Monday because of concern over the implementation of the aid package and the conditions attached.

“The market wants to see the cash laying on the table, not in a coffer besides the table,” said David Schnautz, strategist at Commerzbank in Frankfurt.

The backing of Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, is vital for any aid but Berlin faces public opposition to a financial rescue and is taking a tough line over the terms.

“The government has not taken a decision (on aid),” German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told reporters at a meeting of European Union ministers in Luxembourg.

“That means that the decision can fall in either direction. Offering money too soon would get in the way of Greece doing its homework with the requisite diligence and discipline.”

Despite German pressure on Athens, markets kept pressure on Berlin to decide fast by pushing up the cost of insuring Portuguese government debt against default to a record high because of fears that Portugal could be next to debt crisis.

“The Greek crisis has started to spread to the rest of the periphery and Portugal seems to be next in line. The situation there is less urgent than in Greece, but the medium-term outlook is challenging,” said Darren Williams, senior economist at Alliance Bernstein.

“Unless Europe’s leaders can draw a line under the situation, Portugal could face an uncomfortable period.”

Underlining the fears of “contagion” to other heavily indebted members of the 16-country euro zone, and also concerns about the damage the crisis could do to the EU’s standing, Austria called for a quick decision on triggering aid.

“This aid, which is urgently needed, needs to be effective. We should waste no time here, the basic decisions have been made,” Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger said.

AID REQUEST FAILS TO REASSURE INVESTORS

Saddled with huge debt and a swollen deficit, Greece bowed to pressure from financial markets on Friday and formally requested aid, triggering what could be the first financial rescue of a member of the 11-year-old currency bloc.

Athens has already announced billions of euros in budget cuts, including tax hikes and reductions in public sector wages, setting off violent protests and strikes.

Now it is in talks with the EU and IMF on additional steps to get the aid flowing in time to meet a May 19 debt deadline.

Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said on Sunday talks with the IMF and the European partners went well and he was confident Athens would secure help in May to finance its public debt.

Papaconstantinou also played down concerns that the German government, which wants to avoid defeat in an important regional election on May 9, might block the rescue deal.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, whose organization is expected to provide one-third of the aid, said aid talks had accelerated but Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the package would end up being “more than had been said previously.”

Asked by a reporter whether aid could be as much as 80 or 90 billion euros, Papaconstantinou said he could not provide specific figures.

INVESTORS WORRIED

Investors’ concerns were not appeased.

“An EU-IMF support package of 45 billion euros would only fill liquidity needs of the first year. A multi-year package of 90 billion euros could provide Greece the breathing space to implement the fiscal adjustment,” Barclays Capital said.

The Greek/German 10-year bond yield spread climbed to 614 basis points, up from Friday’s settlement close of 588 bps matching levels last seen in February 1998. Greek banks stocks also fell, by 4.0 percent.

Spreads against Bunds widened across the euro zone periphery, with the Italian spread moving to 99 bps, its widest since July 2009.

“Greece needs 30-40 billion (euros) this year. They need the same amount for each of the following two years. The aid is very much a stop-gap and it’s far from certain that everyone is going to support it,” said Nigel Rendell, an emerging markets strategist at RBC.

Moody’s said the conditions the EU and the IMF attach to their aid to Greece would be important factors in its review of the country’s rating, which the firm cut last week.

“Greece’s government bond rating has factored in the assumption that conditional support from the EU and/or the IMF would be forthcoming, if it was deemed necessary,” Sarah Carlson, Moody’s lead analyst for Greece, told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by George Georgiopoulos and Ingrid Melander in Athens, Emelia Sithole-Matarise in London; writing by Timothy Heritage, editing by Toby Chopra)

feeds.reuters.com

NEW YORK (Reuters) – World stock markets dropped on Friday after U.S. regulators charged Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS.N) with fraud related to subprime mortgages, while the euro dropped on worries about Greece’s debt crisis.

Greece

The CBOE Volatility index .VIX jumped 15.54 percent as U.S. stocks ended the session down more than 1 percent in the

heaviest volume of the year. The VIX, which is Wall Street’s favorite gauge of investor fear, surged just as the Goldman news headlines came out, according to Reuters charts.

Investors moved money into safe-haven U.S. government debt, pushing prices higher and yields lower.

World equities moved in sympathy with U.S. stocks, which were under severe selling pressure as financial issues plunged on the charges against Goldman Sachs and some disappointing earnings. The decline was the market’s biggest in nearly two months, taking the shine off a six-day winning streak.

Goldman (GS.N) fell nearly 13 percent in its worst one-day drop since January 2009, to $160.70 on huge volume after the Securities and Exchange Commission sued it for fraud tied to collateralized debt obligations that contributed to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

“It’s going to take a while for the markets to digest this as investors weed out what it could mean for Goldman and if other banks could be hit with something similar,” said Tom Lydon, president of Global Investment Trends in Newport Beach, California.

Defaults on subprime mortgages and the unraveling of related derivatives and debt played a major role in the credit crunch that led to a meltdown on Wall Street and the worst U.S. recession since the 1930s.

At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was down 125.91 points, or 1.13 percent, at 11,018.66, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index .SPX was off 19.54 points, or 1.61 percent, at 1,192.13. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC lost 34.43 points, or 1.37 percent, at 2,481.26.

The MSCI’s global equity index .MIWD00000PUS settled down 1.57 percent, though still set for its seventh straight weekly gain. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 also was down 1.52 percent.

Overall, global shares edged off 16-month highs as persistent uncertainty over Greece’s ability to pay its debts tempered optimism over the global economic recovery.

In currencies, the dollar was up against a basket of major trading-partner currencies, with the U.S. Dollar Index .DXY up 0.37 percent at 80.778 from a previous session close of 80.482.

The euro remained pressured and Greek bond yields rose after Athens said it was preparing to activate an IMF/EU financial aid package.

The euro was down 0.54 percent at $1.3506 from a previous close of $1.3579.

Against the Japanese yen, the dollar was down 0.95 percent at 92.11 from a previous session close of 92.990.

GREECE MOVES

The euro slid for the second day due to renewed worries over Greece’s ability to service its sovereign debt. On Thursday, the euro snapped a five-day winning streak as investors’ concerns escalated about Greece’s debt problems.

Greece lurched closer toward asking for international aid after it requested official talks with European authorities and the International Monetary Fund.

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet told euro zone finance ministers that the situation for Greek banks remains difficult and could deteriorate further.

The cost of insuring Greek sovereign debt rose about 10 basis points from Thursday’s close to 428.5 bps, according to CMA DataVision. Greek 10-year bond yields rose to 7.4 percent, widening the 10-year Greek/German government bond yield spread.

U.S. Treasury debt, investors’ favorite safe haven, rose.

The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note was up 17/32, with the yield at 3.77 percent, while the 2-year U.S. Treasury note was up 3/32, with the yield at 0.96 percent. The 30-year U.S. Treasury bond was up 22/32, with the yield at 4.67 percent.

In energy and commodities trading, U.S. light sweet crude oil fell $2.40, or 2.81 percent, to $83.11 per barrel, and spot gold fell $21.35, or 1.84 percent, to $1136.60. The Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index .CRB was down 3.46 points, or 1.24 percent, at 276.29.

(Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos in New York and Sebastian Tong in London; Editing by Dan Grebler)

feeds.reuters.com

MADRID (Reuters) – Greece’s aid deal has saved it from default and quashed fears of a euro zone breakup, policymakers said on Thursday, and the head of its finance minister group said new tools were needed to help fiscal stragglers.

Greece

Investors took a less rosy view, selling the euro and driving up Greek bond yields ahead of a meeting of euro zone finance heads expected to break little new ground on the Aegean state’s crisis or long-term reform of the single currency.

The difference in interest between Greek 10-year bonds and their euro zone German benchmarks jumped to 426 basis points, near record levels hit before Greece’s aid parachute was announced last weekend, from 406.

The euro fell to $1.3533, its lowest level this week.

A May 9 election looming in Germany and confusion over the logistics of disbursing the aid, should Athens ask for it, has clouded the picture as Greece tries to drum up investor interest to refinance an 8.5 billion euro bond next month.

European Central Bank Executive Board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi said the aid deal fleshed out on Sunday was a turning point in the crisis.

“This announcement makes it clear … that a scenario of default and exit from the euro area, which some market participants and observers had toyed with, was simply absurd,” he told journalists in Japan.

With an estimated 30 billion euros in the first year from euro zone states and another 10-15 billion expected from the International Monetary Fund, the package would be the biggest multilateral bailout ever attempted.

LACK OF CLARITY

But hurdles remain. On Wednesday, a German economist threatened to legally challenge the aid deal because he said it broke EU rules by offering cash at below market rates.

Germany, tapped to lend some 8.4 billion euros, also cast doubt on the size of the deal, saying talk of more than the amount slated for the first year was “speculation.”

It has resisted helping after Athens flouted EU rules with profligate spending and borrowing for years.

Polls show the German public is overwhelmingly against a financial bailout for Greece and Chancellor Angela Merkel could lose its majority in the Bundesrat upper house of parliament if defeated in next month’s state election.

But EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said he was confident Germany would step in if needed.

“I have no reason to doubt the German commitment if needed and if aid were to be requested,” Rehn said.

He also dismissed fears of some investors over Greece’s long-term solvency, saying: “There will be no default.”

GERMAN ROLE

Billionaire financier George Soros said the euro and the EU itself were at risk of breaking up if Germany refused to play its traditional role binding the European project together.

“The Germans have always made the concessions needed to advance the European Union, when people were looking for a deal. Not any more,” Soros told Corriere della Sera in an interview published on Thursday.

“That’s why the European project is stalled… If you don’t make the next steps forward for the euro, the euro will go to pieces and the European Union too.”

Soros said the 27-member bloc needed a more flexible mechanism like a European Monetary Fund to help countries make deficit cuts without such painful belt-tightening measures.

That was echoed by Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, who said a new measure, which could possible involve a change to the EU treaty, was needed.

“We have resorted to these loans (for Greece) because there was no other solution within the European Treaty,” Juncker was quoted as saying.

“For the future we will have to install a European mechanism without allowing some member states to relax and not balance their books.

Bini Smaghi also said the crisis had exposed flaws in EU decision-making.

“This experience should now be used to create a more efficient decision-making process within the euro area, aimed in particular at preventing similar situations from occurring in the future and eventually at solving them more efficiently.”

Greece may give the euro zone’s 16 finance ministers an update on its situation in Madrid.

It has promised to cut its government budget deficit by about a third to 8.7 percent of gross domestic product, crucial to eventually cutting debt pile that is a quarter bigger than its annual economic output.

A euro zone source said ministers may ask Greece for more structural or administrative reforms, and reforms to its methods of gathering statistics or providing information but would not ask Athens to cut its deficit more this year.

“You can safely exclude that,” the source said.

(Additional reporting by Tim Heritage, Nigel Tutt, Marcin Grajewski Marc Jones and Jan Strupczewski; writing by Michael Winfrey, editing by Mike Peacock)

feeds.reuters.com

LONDON (Reuters) – Investors cut back on equities and lifted exposure to bonds in March, signaling a degree of caution about coming months as world stocks headed for their fourth quarterly rise.

China

Reuters polls of 47 leading investment houses across the world also hauled back exposure to emerging market stocks, reflecting the sector’s recent underperformance, particularly China.

Overall, the investment houses held an average of 53.5 percent of a typical mixed-asset fund in equities, down from 55.4 percent in February,

Bond holdings rose to 34.5 percent from 33.3 percent, with the increase coming in investment grade corporate credit rather than government debt or higher yield.

Cash fell to 4.5 percent of an average portfolio from 4.8 percent, suggesting that investors are still seeking yield over the safest of safe havens.

The pull back in equities comes as world stocks looked to be putting in their fourth consecutive quarterly rise. Each quarter has gained less than the previous one, however, with the current one expected to end with gains of just 2-3 percent .MIWD00000PUS.

That is seen by some as a sign that last year’s rally is petering out in the face of macroeconomic headwinds.

“Risks include government belt tightening leading to weaker growth in developed market economies and inflation fears in emerging markets, especially China, spreading,” said Stefan Rondorf, portfolio manager at Allianz Global Investors.

The poll, meanwhile, confirmed suspicions that demand for once red-hot emerging market assets was slowing.

The percentage of equities in emerging market stocks fell to 12.3 percent in March from 14.3 percent in February, while emerging market bonds made up 5.8 percent of a fixed income portfolio versus 6.7 percent a month earlier.

REGIONALLY

U.S. fund managers slightly decreased their exposure to equities in March and raised their bond allocations.

The 12 U.S.-based fund management firms surveyed held an average of 64.6 percent of assets in equities, compared with 66.2 percent a month earlier, which was a post-crisis high.

Fixed-income holdings rose to an average of 30.0 percent, from 29.1 percent in February. Cash exposure remained steady at an average of 1.7 percent.

Continental European investors lifted cash to a 10-month high and boosted bond positions while they cut back on equities for a second month running.

The poll of 14 European-based asset management firms showed a typical mixed portfolio holding 48.0 percent of its assets in equities, its lowest level this year and down from 49.8 percent in February.

Allocation to bonds rose to 39.3 percent this month from 37.4 percent in the previous period. Cash rose again to 6.7 percent from 6.5 percent.

Japanese fund managers shifted money to stocks from bonds.

The 11 poll participants raised their average weighting of stocks to 46.5 percent in March from 45.7 percent in the previous month while they cut bonds to 47.6 percent from 48.0 percent.

Cash holdings dropped to 3.0 percent from 3.5 percent a month earlier.

British fund managers cut equities, although a change in the survey sample exaggerated the move.

The 10 participants held 55.0 percent of their funds in equities in March, down from 59.9 percent. Bond holdings increased to 21.0 percent from 18.5 percent.

With worries that upcoming UK election will not throw out a clear winner, the managers reduced exposure to both British stocks and bonds.

Separate polls, with data not included in this story, were also issued for China and India.

(Additional reporting by Jennifer Ablan in New York, Akiko Takeda in Tokyo, Natsuko Waki and Chris Vellacott in London and Bangalore Polling Unit; Graphic by Scott Barber; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

feeds.reuters.com