NEW YORK, June 24 (Reuters) - U.S. money managers embraced risk in the second quarter, turning more bullish on emerging market equities and high-yield bonds as Treasuries lost favor, a survey released on Wednesday found.

Seventy-four percent of managers were bullish on emerging market equities and 66 percent were bullish on high-yield bonds, the survey by Russell Investments found. Those asset classes, the riskiest equities and bonds respectively, ranked highest in bullish ratings.

"Managers are indicating a much higher level of comfort with risk and appear to be making a rotation from defense to offense," Mark Eibel, Russell's director of investment management and research, said in a statement. "To keep it simple, 'anything but cash and Treasuries' appears to be the rule for managers right now."

Since the previous survey in March, "the risk switch seems to have gone from full off to full on," Eibel said.

In addition to the return to risk, bullishness on emerging market equites also stemmed from a resurgence in commodities prices, a weaker dollar and optimism about China's fiscal recovery efforts, Eibel said.

Managers were still pessimistic about the credit markets, however, with 67 percent saying it would take six months to a year for the recovery process to play out.

"Taken together, the manager response seems to say that a recovery is probably underway but the ride is still going to be a bumpy one," Eibel said.

Managers were slightly less optimistic about corporate bonds, with 66 percent bullish, down from 67 percent in the March survey. About 19 percent were pessimistic on corporate bonds, up from 16 percent in the previous survey.

Only 17 percent of investors were bearish on high-yield bonds, down from 23 percent in the previous survey, while just 16 percent were bearish on emerging market equities, down from 43 percent earlier.