FundCalibre - Investing on the go

With approximately 41,000 companies listed worldwide, how’s an investor to choose? And once invested, how do you keep your emotions in check? In this interview, Bertrand Cliquet, co-manager of Lazard Global Equity Franchise fund, tells us how this fund’s emphasis on good economic franchises filters that list down to an eclectic mix of just 26 stocks. Bertrand also explains how the process uses a b...

With over 30 years’ experience of investing in the Asia region, Jason Pidcock, manager of the Jupiter Asian Income fund, takes us deep into the heart of his fund’s territory. He explains why he’s comfortable with a zero-weighting to China and perhaps surprises some listeners with the news that the Australian stock market has been the best equity market in the world since 1900. Jason gives us the r...

Abby Glennie, manager of the abrdn UK Mid Cap Equity fund , joins us to celebrate our 250th episode by talking all things FTSE 250 - the UK’s 250 mid-sized companies. Abby and Darius discuss the types of companies listed in the FTSE 250 and their attractive qualities for long term investors. Abby also tells us that more mid-sized companies can be found in the AIM index and gives a number of exampl...

Alexandra Jackson, manager of Rathbone UK Opportunities fund, gives her views on the Silicon Valley Bank failure and why rising interest rates are felt more by start-ups than quality companies. According to Alexandra, the UK is trading on a 40% discount to global equities, so now could be a good time to invest. She discusses the wide range of opportunities to be had, ranging from gaming to infrast...

Darius McDermott and Juliet Schooling Latter offer their opinions on market volatility brought on by a potential banking crisis. They discuss the issues around the failures of both Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse and how a lack of investor confidence could potentially see these issues spread further. Closer to home, we discuss the FTSE 100 and recent changes to the Lifetime Allowance for pen...

The Invesco Global Focus fund has a refreshingly simple approach: understand the structural trends which are changing the world and then invest in the best companies which are benefitting from these trends. John Delano, co-manager on the fund, explains how the managers’ go about identifying these themes, the importance of scale and monetisation and gives examples in cloud computing and medical dev...

Mike Tyson spoke from experience when he said “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”. 2022 was a punch in the mouth to investors everywhere and resulted in emotional volatility in markets according to Steven Andrew, manager of M&G Episode Income . Steven talks us about investor optimism — and pessimism — across a range of assets, notably UK equities and emerging market bonds...

George Curtis, portfolio manager and member of the Multi-Sector Bond team at TwentyFour Asset Management, presents a broad overview of bond markets as we stand today. He covers all areas from high yield to government bonds and gives insights as to why the TwentyFour Dynamic Bond fund has been reducing exposure to both emerging market bonds and the high yield bond market, as well as the growing sig...

In just two years, 60% of all the wealth in the UK will be in female hands. So now is not the time to be quiet about money matters! Gillian Hepburn, Head of UK Intermediary Solutions at Schroders has been researching the transfer of wealth for a number of years and joins us to discuss this in more detail. From pensions problems to divorce disasters Gillian outlines some of the issues women may fac...

Linden Thomson, manager of the AXA Framlington Biotech fund, gives an introduction to biotech, one of the fastest growing subsets of the healthcare industry. Linden explains the difference between pharmaceuticals and biotech, and outlines the themes driving the sector, including drug innovations in the area of HIV/AIDS and cystic fibrosis. She also covers the influence of US politics and geopoliti...

Barings Europe Select Trust co-manager Will Cuss talks about all things Europe in this week’s podcast. He gives us a brief overview of inflation in the Eurozone and comments on some big moves in the commodities market. Will also discusses how the energy availability risk looks set to decrease with a combination of a new energy source – Middle East gas – coming onstream, alongside growing investmen...

Rasmus Nemmoe, manager of the FSSA Global Emerging Markets Focus fund, talks to us about the outlook for emerging markets and the factors in play today that have influenced past performance. He explains which companies are bucking the trend and gives examples from the portfolio including South African and India banks and the Mexican Starbucks operator. Rasmus also explains how the fund has evolved...

Baillie Gifford’s Ben James talks to us about US equities and the Baillie Gifford American fund in this week’s podcast. He tells how sticking to the fund’s philosophy and process in challenging markets helped them ‘avoid making knee-jerk reactions to the noise and the sentiment in the market’. He also discusses the US economy and the outlook for its businesses, before going on to tell us the team’...

Alex Wright, manager of the Fidelity Special Values investment trust, explains to us how the UK’s largest 100 companies can be trading cheaply, even though the index has hit an all-time-high. He discusses the different areas of the UK stock market and tells us why he thinks banks are the most exciting sector for investors today. Alex also discusses the importance of dividends and tells us why he p...

Paul Marriage, co-manager of the TM Tellworth UK Smaller Companies fund, explains why 2022 was “pants” for the UK smaller companies sector, both in terms of performance and from an M&A perspective. Yet Paul is optimistic for the sector in 2023 and is already seeing bids come through for M&A and beginnings of a healthy IPO market. We finish the interview with two examples from the portfolio...

Sid Chand Lall, manager of the IFSL Marlborough Multi Cap Income fund, talks to us about finding income opportunities in the UK's smaller – but growing – companies. He describes how he finds profitable companies and explains how dividends can help offset the erosion caused by inflation. Sid also highlights one smaller company and two medium-sized ones in the portfolio: Ricardo Plc, Paragon Ba...

Richard Sennitt, manager of Schroder Asian Income fund, explains both the structural and cyclical reasons for recent Chinese equity underperformance, including the shift away from the zero-Covid policy. He tells us what impact this has had on the fund’s positioning going into 2023 and explains more about why he’s underweight not only China but also India, instead looking towards South Korea, Taiwa...

One day in September 2022 “we were the only active buyer of UK duration in the world” says manager Duncan MacInnes. He, and LF Ruffer Diversified Return co-manager Ian Rees, added to UK gilts three days after the Truss-Kwarteng debacle and some assets more than doubled in a short period of time. In this interview, the pair tell us about this and other investments that helped the fund become one of...

Renewable energy has been around for some time, but with an energy crisis in the UK and Europe, David Harrison, manager of  Rathbone Greenbank Global Sustainability  fund, tells how its adoption is being accelerated due to both concerns about climate change and because of economics. In this interview, David considers four types of sustainable infrastructure (physical, energy, transport and water)...

Darius McDermott and Juliet Schooling Latter offer their opinions on how we got to where we are today and where we should be looking in 2023. The list of topics they cover is extensive including inflation, bonds, emerging markets (with India as the star of the show) and continuing volatility for the equity markets. They then look at the interesting question of where they would invest £10,000 today...

Simon Moon and Alex Game, managers of the Unicorn UK Smaller Companies fund, review a tough year for their sector but are confident in still being able to find opportunities by buying into under-priced, high-quality assets. Both managers identify smaller companies as being able to react and adapt quicker to changing fiscal environments than their larger comparators, so they believe that smaller co...

Matthew Brett, manager of the Baillie Gifford Japanese fund and Baillie Gifford Japan Trust, talks to us about the Japanese economy reopening and how the weak yen is impacting business. He talks about inflation finally occurring in the country and questions whether the Bank of Japan’s policy will change when the current governor’s term comes to an end. Matthew tells us that he is excited about the...

Steven Smith, Investment Director for the Elite Rated Capital Group New Perspective fund, talks to us about how the fund’s original investment ethos - determined nearly 50 years ago - has evolved, and continues to evolve in today’s markets. He discusses how globalisation has changed their investment perspective, how growth stocks are being evaluated on slightly tweaked criteria to match the expect...

Richard Woolnough, veteran manager of three Elite Rated products, the M&G Corporate Bond , M&G Strategic Corporate Bond and the M&G Optimal Income fund, talks to us about some new acronyms in asset allocation. He tells us how equities can boost a bond fund’s returns, explains the wider impact of quantitative easing and quantitative tightening, and he finishes by commenting on whether h...

Chris Kinder, manager of the CT UK Extended Alpha fund, talks to us about being a bottom-up stock picker and finding ‘rain in the desert’; he notes that even in the most trying of financial markets, there will always be certain pockets of growth and performance that fund managers should be able to find. He comments in detail about the benefits that London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), Aveva, SSE, a...