As artificial intelligence sentiment surges back to prominence, UK-listed stocks are quietly being left behind by the global flow of capital.
New data from Bank of America signals a dramatic shift in how professional fund managers are viewing the AI trade heading into the second half of 2026.
Semiconductors remain the most crowded trade on the planet, but the share of managers describing them that way has collapsed from a record 82% in July down to 53% in August.
Concern about an AI bubble remains the number-one perceived risk among fund managers, though that anxiety has faded significantly, dropping from 45% to 32% in a single month.
Meanwhile, 71% of managers now expect no capital spending cuts in 2026, up from 61% a month earlier, suggesting growing confidence in the durability of AI infrastructure investment.
Cash levels among professional investors are falling, and a net 27% of managers are now overweight US equities, the highest level recorded since December 2024.
As money floods back into the AI trade, it has to come from somewhere, and UK-listed stocks are among the assets being quietly passed over by the returning wave of enthusiasm.
The FTSE 100 has never been the first port of call for investors chasing cutting-edge technology exposure, and the current rotation is doing little to change that perception.
Rightmove (LSE: RMV) has fallen out of the FTSE 100 entirely, with investors apparently convinced that AI tools like ChatGPT will eventually disintermediate the UK’s largest property portal.
That fear has compressed the stock’s price-to-earnings multiple to around 15, a valuation level that would be considered unusually low for a business with Rightmove’s financial profile.
The bearish case, however, runs up against some awkward evidence buried in the company’s own half-year results, which showed less than 0.5% of traffic arriving via large language models.
Over 85% of Rightmove’s traffic remained organic and direct, a figure that casts serious doubt on the idea that AI assistants are already reshaping how people search for property in the UK.
The company’s own AI tools are reportedly performing well, and as analyst Dr James Fox has noted, the token cost of building a credible AI replacement for Rightmove could be prohibitive.
Strip away the disintermediation narrative and the underlying business looks remarkably robust, with agency revenue up 9% and average revenue per advertiser climbing £117 to reach £1,726.
The company is also running an underlying operating margin of 69%, a figure that reflects the near-monopoly network effects that Rightmove has built up over more than two decades.
Shareholders are set to receive over £400m returned to them by July 2027, including around £330m in share buybacks, which represents a substantial commitment for a business priced as a structural loser.
AI optimism may be riding high right now, but sentiment of this kind has historically proven fragile, and a single negative headline could quickly reverse the mood across global markets.
That fragility makes a case for looking beyond the crowded trades toward quality businesses that the market has mispriced, and Rightmove stands out as one of the more compelling examples available right now.