Investment in bonds and cash are being advised by the experts instead, Virgin Money has said.
Some Independent Financial Advisors (IFAs) are telling clients to scale back their exposure to equities, as volatility on the stock markets continues.
Recent "massive swings" on the flagship FTSE-100 index are understood to have provided impetus behind this new advice, with cash and bond investment benefiting as a result, Virgin Money claimed today. The results were contained in the firm's new Investor Intentions Index, which tracks confidence levels across the IFA sector.
At the start of July, the FTSE stood at 5,479. By the middle of the month, it had put on 50 points, only to plunge to 5,150 and then to rise to 5,569 by the end of August.
Accordingly, 86 percent of IFAs told Virgin Money that they were advising clients to invest in cash over the near future, while 83 percent were also upbeat on bonds. By contrast, shares were only favoured by 78 percent, despite the inherently higher returns possible with this form of investment.
The declining housing market - with mortgage approvals numbers 70 percent down on those of a year ago - have also been noted by IFAs, with just 41 percent advising property investment to clients.
Scott Mowbray, spokesman at Virgin Money, said: "The shift to cash and bonds is a sign of the times with stock market volatility and almost daily doses of bad news hitting confidence in shares. It is clearly a case of safety first for advisers with clients' best interests at heart. Concerns about inflation are the dominant factor in the market with that worry outweighing fears about the UK economic slowdown tipping over into recession."
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