Fund Manager's Roar
Blogs provided by the fund managers at Liontrust Asset Management
"Will the strong emerging market performance continue through 2012 or has the high point already been recorded?"
Investors should pay close attention to economic data over the next few weeks in emerging markets. Upcoming macroeconomic releases at the country level could determine whether the rest of 2012 continues the trend of strong emerging market equity market performance seen in January and February or whether the high point of the year has already been recorded. The reason for this is that we may be approaching an important inflection point in economic indicators.
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“We have a bias to international product and service companies. Growth rates for many of these will be positive this year because of demand levels from emerging markets.”
There is growing confidence among economists and commentators that the UK economy will avoid a double dip recession in the first quarter of 2012. This is based on recent data in the services, manufacturing and retail sectors that suggest the economy is showing signs of recovery from the 0.2% decline in the fourth quarter of 2011. Our best guess for the UK economy continues to be that it will undergo a period of slow growth as the process of deleveraging continues.
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Looking for a Bargain?
Whilst the current bout of volatility is stressful, particularly for those who spend too much time staring at flickering stock prices, it should be welcomed by long-term investors. The stock market is not efficient. There is now an opportunity to buy a number of world class companies at prices that are considerably lower than they were four months ago.
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Europe: Finding Opportunities for Growth
Prior to the fall in stock markets that began in July but gained dramatic momentum in August, we were cautious about equities in general. This was because of the elevated valuation in markets as measured by book value and normalised earnings as well as the difficult macroeconomic backdrop, notably the developed world struggling to cope with the high levels of national indebtedness.
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UK: Keep Calm and Carry On
August has traditionally been the time to recharge your batteries and tend to those administrative tasks you had neglected over the previous few months. This year, however, people’s attentions have been transfixed by an unprecedented number of dramatic economic and political events across the world, from the downgrading of the US’ credit rating, the ongoing sovereign debt crisis in Europe, the shocking events in Libya, Syria, Somalia, Norway and elsewhere and the riots across England.
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We have a zero weighting in UK banks our funds. Why are we negative on banks at the moment?
To qualify for inclusion in our portfolios, a company must have Economic Advantage that derives from at least one of the following ‘intangible assets’:
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Which UK stocks do we believe will perform in spite of the continued negative economic environment?
The outlook for the UK economy continues to be gloomy. We do not expect a pick up before there is enough pull power from the private sector to make up for the shortfall in the public sector. Long-term drivers of the global economy are still in place so we believe this will happen but it may not be as soon as many of the forecasts suggest.
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