Corbin Perception, a leading investor research and investor relations (IR) advisory firm, today released its quarterly research report Inside The Buy-side®, a global survey that captures trends in institutional investor sentiment heading into the earnings season. The poll is based on responses from 73 institutional investors managing a combined $1.8 trillion in assets.

Heading into the fourth quarter earnings season, buy side sentiment continued to soften. Nearly 60% of institutional investors polled are bracing for disappointing quarterly results and muted 2016 annual guidance. As the reality of a looming U.S. recession settles in after nine years of continued expansion and the third longest bull market, 61% of investors are looking for organic growth performance to have worsened in the fourth quarter and more than half forecast margin expansion and earnings growth deterioration. Asia-based investors are even more bearish: roughly 85% anticipate further deterioration in earnings.

“We are entering a new reality that the market was previously reluctant to accept,” said Rebecca Corbin, Founder and Managing Partner of Corbin Perception. “Our research shows that institutional investors believe 2016 will be a muted year and therefore a stock picker’s market has emerged. We will continue to see a flight to quality as investors are placing more and more emphasis on balance sheet strength and management teams that have a track record of executing through downturns.”

Survey findings reflect continued downbeat sentiment among investment professionals and corporate managers, with 69% of respondents describing themselves as neutral to bearish. Only 6% of surveyed investors identified themselves as bullish.

“The [U.S.] economy appears to be weakening, spreading out from Energy into Materials and Industrials,” said Bill Anderson, Portfolio Manager at Carnegie Investment Counsel. “Most of our companies in those areas are characterizing 2015 as a year of increased struggle, saying it is taking 3x as much effort to stay even.”

Management tone remains muted but pockets of optimism exist, largely out of Europe and the Tech sector but concerns about global capex spend levels ebbing are beginning to set in.

“2016 guidance will be somewhat lower than consensus; companies will be cautious following the first interest rate raise since 2006, the continued decline in the price of oil, and global macro concerns,” said Steven DeLuca, CFA, a Portfolio Manager at Jadwin Partners.

Finally, the majority of surveyed investors, 72%, expect increases of between 50 and 75 bps by the end of 2016, while nearly 70% assert that rising rates will have a net neutral impact on the U.S. economy this year.

Since 2006, Corbin Perception has tracked investor sentiment on a quarterly basis. Inside The Buy-side® and other research on real-time investor sentiment, IR best practices and case studies are available at CorbinPerception.com.

About Corbin Perception

Corbin Perception assists public companies with systematically understanding and positively influencing critical institutional investor sentiment by leveraging our proprietary research-based approach. We provide senior level executives and IR professionals with company-specific quantitative and qualitative feedback from investors and analysts and then draw upon our firm's considerable expertise to guide management teams in shaping those perceptions and maximizing valuation. Our clients range from highly sophisticated mega-caps to micro-caps worldwide across diverse industries. Our quarterly investor research report, Inside The Buy-side®, which tracks changes in global institutional investor sentiment, has been covered by news affiliates worldwide and featured on CNBC's Squawk on the Street.

To access the full report, visit our website: www.corbinperception.com/research-library