Equity markets may be generally higher but fresh data suggests a large chunk of Australia's millionaires prefer the safety of cash, even with low yields.

High net worth investors in Australia remain a cautious bunch, notwithstanding equity market gains around much of the world, and a significant minority keep assets in cash and increasing these holdings, figures show.

The latest Westpac CoreData HNWI measure of sentiment, tracking views of Australia’s 1.9 million HNW individuals each quarter, said that 43.3 per cent of them are holding cash and building it, a report by The Australian showed.

This publication is in contact with CoreData and Westpac for further details about the data, and will update in due course. The data suggests that while markets have recovered since the crisis of 2008, there are concerns about how durable the equity market recovery, and rise in certain other markets such as property, really is. 

The report said that data shows that this “cash-hugging cohort” of the population may never put this money to work in risk markets such as stocks, keeping up to a quarter of their assets in low-yield cash.

CoreData research shows that the separation in performance between those Australians who have re-entered the market (buying shares in Australia and overseas) and those who stayed in cash over the period June 2009 to June 2014 are as much as 40 per cent better off than those holding cash, the report said.

The latest monthly fund manager poll by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, published in June, showed that, worldwide, equities remained the asset class of choice, so much so that 15 per cent of fund managers regarded the class as over-valued - a position not seen since 2000.