Investor sentiment collapsed in March amid the coronavirus pandemic fallout, Bank of America survey shows

• Net 49% of investors now expect global growth to deteriorate in the next 12 months, down from net 18% that in February expected growth to continue, according to a survey released Tuesday from Bank of America.
• The "outbreak of COVID-19 against an already fragile macro backdrop led to the biggest monthly drop in global expectations ever," wrote a group of strategists led by Michael Hartnett.
• Coronavirus is the biggest tail risk that fund managers see for markets, according to the survey. Still, many survey measures haven't reached extreme levels seen in 2008.
• Read more on Business Insider.

US investors are panicking amid the coronavirus fallout, shock to oil prices, increased recession probability, and risk of debt defaults, according to Bank of America's monthly fund manager survey.

Net 49% of investors now expect global growth to deteriorate in the next 12 months, down from net 18% that in February expected growth to continue, according to the survey released Tuesday from Bank of America. The survey was sent between March 6-12 to 207 investors with $517 billion assets under management.

The "outbreak of COVID-19 against an already fragile macro backdrop led to the biggest monthly drop in global expectations ever," wrote a group of strategists led by Michael Hartnett. The survey goes back to October 1994.

Coronavirus is now the top biggest tail risk that fund managers see for markets going forward, according to the survey, overtaking the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, which was the top risk in February.

The survey also displayed a number of other records showing growing investor concern amid the coronavirus-induced market volatility.

Equity allocations posted their largest drop on record ever, plunging 35 percentage points as investors' risk appetites decline. In addition, a record high of net 62% of investors said that fiscal policy is too restrictive.

Another record high on the March survey is investor fear of a credit event. Net 53% of fund managers think that corporate balance sheets are currently overleveraged, according to the report.

Read more: 'Things can get worse': An expert who cautioned about highly indebted companies before the coronavirus-led crash lays out a scenario where defaults soar and firms go bust

As the coronavirus pandemic continues on and consumers are told to social distance, cancel travel, and stop going out, companies are facing additional pressure and drawing on credit to cover potential fallout. In addition, oil companies have been hit by falling prices amid the collapse of OPEC and its allies, putting US shale companies at a heightened risk of default, according to JPMorgan.

Fund manager cash levels jumped to 5.1% in March from 4%, the fourth-largest jump since 2001, according to the survey.

Even though the March survey shows fund managers are worried about the future, the climate is still not as bad as it got amid the great financial crisis, according to the report.

In comparison to surveys from 2008 -2009, the March results show investors are "close to prior extremes on cash level and concerns about corporate leverage, but far from true capitulation on growth and recession expectations as well as equity and bank asset allocations," Hartnett wrote.

Get the latest Bank of America stock price here.