During the past three and a half years, any notion of an investment safe haven—a place where money can be put with little or no risk—has disappeared.

At Goldman Sachs Asset Management, we commissioned the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2010 to conduct a survey among European investors to gauge thinking following the crisis. The survey,  “Assessing and Explaining Risk,” posed questions to 289 private and corporate investors and financial advisers across Europe.

The results showed that respondents’ perception of risk had increased in all asset classes. The status of those such as cash and fixed income—normally assumed to be safe—had been challenged. At the same time, 61 per cent of British investors expected a mix of strong growth in emerging markets and low growth in developed markets.

Yet here’s the paradox: most investors still have a huge home market bias in their investment strategies, meaning they prefer to buy securities