Peter Walls, director Unicorn Asset Management

“From the fund manager’s point of view, for the first time in my career the political aspects of investment are to the fore, and really without being able to second-guess what politicians are going to do next it has made life very difficult. You cannot just build your investment process around pure fundamentals anymore; you have to be aware of the political situation.” 

“This has led me to a certain extent to sit on my hands. I have not changed my portfolio radically over this period. It would be foolish to try to call markets but also to take all the risk out of my portfolio. So it’s a question of trying to be prepared for a change of direction even though it’s difficult to say when that may come, but it’s normally when you least expect it.”

“The key changes regarding investor expectations would be that because of changes in government bond rates the quest for income has accelerated. Now, demographics play a role in this theme, in that we are getting to the retirement of the baby-boomers so the quest for income was there already, but it has been accelerated.”

“Clients have become more cost-conscious as returns have suffered, so I think there’s probably quite a bit more focus on TER and more appetite for passives.”

“They want managers that are more risk-averse or concentrate more on portfolio protection. That’s probably the wrong way of going about things if you believe that markets have the potential to recover at some stage.” 


Anthony Rayner, portfolio analyst at Darwin Asset Management

“We’re in an unstable economic environment which everyone expects  to continue indefinitely, and that means people are paying far more attention to economic data releases and policy announcements. When the economy was more stable investors weren’t really interested in economic data points and stock-picking really drove markets, which is less and less the case now.” 

“If you look at Draghi’s speech last week for example, it drove markets up and had significant effect. Now that may not last, but it was an important event that moved markets. It’s not a stock-pickers world anymore.”

 “Those investors who are focussing solely on high quality stocks might not do as well as those who are considering the broad investment environment and the construction of a diversified portfolio.” 


Ben Willis, Whitechurch Securities

“It’s probably true that if you buy and hold now you will be sitting on significant gains in five years. Corporates are in good health having restructured following the crisis and markets are low.”

“However, a lot of clients were invested in 2008, so it’s not easy to convince them of that. Others might remember the tech boom too.”

“Even though a lot of clients are risk-averse right now, given the market collapses in the past few years, this also cuts both ways.”

“There are a lot of clients who were coming off some quite high fixed savings rates in2009 and 2010 and they suddenly find they are being offered much lower rates and can’t get the income they need. They might be taking on more risk than they really want to in order to chase income.”