European pension schemes have increased their flight from equities in the wake of the credit crunch, becoming forced sellers in falling markets, according to research conducted on behalf of Financial News.

In the survey, 21% of respondents said they were planning to decrease their allocations to US equities and 17% said they would reduce their UK equity holdings. This compares with 6% and 2% of respondents respectively who said they were going to increase allocations to those asset classes.