Mixed signals on the global economy have left the people who steer investment wealth around the world sharply divided about the future direction of financial markets. The relative consensus of the past few years - which saw equities rising, the dollar declining and bonds selling off - has given way to polite disagreement.
Ask an investment strategist for a view on equities at the moment and you are almost as likely to hear a bearish growl as you are a bullish roar.
Meanwhile, the debate over the direction of the dollar - down on US structural imbalances versus up on US economic dynamism - remains unabated. And as for bonds as Alan Greenspan would say, that's a conundrum. "We are going through a period of almost extreme divergence of opinion and positioning," said Bob Parker, vice president of Credit Suisse Asset Management. Consider the current stances of two Swedish firms, Robur and Handelsbanken Asset Management, roughly the same size and catering to similar clients.
In recent interviews, Robur's head of asset allocation Hakan Johansson said his firm now held its most aggressive pro-equities stance for seven years, based on low interest rates and a relatively robust economy.
His Handelsbanken counterpart, Greger Wahlstedt, said his firm had just cut exposure to stocks, based on a slowing economy and over-optimism about corporate earnings. Similar divisions can be found elsewhere.
Britain's Insight Investment, for example, has moved underweight in equities, fearing downside risks. Its slightly larger competitor Standard Life Investments is overweight, expecting upside surprises.
The pro-equities camp still appears to constitute a majority among leading investors. Merrill Lynch's latest fund manager poll shows 56 percent to be overweight equities with the remaining either neutral, underweight or unable to answer.
But the poll also showed more managers planning to decrease stocks than increase them, something that has happened only three times since 2001.
Equity weightings in global mixed funds were also at their lowest since November, according to the poll.
A major reason for the divergence is the different interpretation of where the world economy is heading, driven in part by mixed economic signals. For example, if the economy is slowing, why is the demand for oil so high? There appears to be a consensus that the economy is slowing, but by how much and what its impact will be is the issue.
"We view the economic outlook as pretty poor," said Philip Barleggs, Insight's head of allocation. "We think there is going to be a more sizeable slowdown in the US than the market is currently pricing in."
Combining this slowdown with a contraction in corporate margins suggests downside surprises, he said.
The other view is expressed by Andrew Milligan, Standard Life Investments' head of global strategy.
This whither-the-economy debate also lies at the heart of the longstanding divide among investors about the direction of the dollar.
For firms such as Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, a combination of higher interest rates and outperforming US growth will drive the dollar higher against the euro over the next 12 months to a rate of around $1.12. The British pound, SWIP says, will fall to $1.65.
For others such as wealth manager Citigroup Private Bank, US external imbalances are so strong that they will drag the dollar down to as much as $1.40 to the euro in 12 months time. The pound will move up towards $2, it says in its latest report. And then there is the bond market, where the irony is that most investors are more or less agreed that it is right to be bearish.
Merrill's poll showed only 67 percent of fund managers were underweight in bonds. But, then again, they have been overwhelmingly in this position for two years while bonds have kept surprising markets on the upside.
Within such divisions are fortunes made and lost.
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