Chatfeild-Roberts: ‘We all have to pay’ whatever the Election result

John Chatfeild-Roberts, the Jupiter CIO and head of the Merlin multi-manager team, believes while all election scenarios are a possibility, the UK will be forced to accept some harsh fiscal action whatever the outcome.

Speaking to the FT, Chatfeild-Roberts says despite the current headlines, the market's response to the Election result is likely to be muted.

John Chatfeild-Roberts: I cannot help thinking the UK stock market may move very slightly on an election result but actually what is much more important is what is going on in the global economy.

I think policy action has to come whoever wins and whatever coalitions may come to pass. I have to say I really do think we all have to pay - we have had a party for the last 10/15/20 years based on leverage, based on rising property values and we have all been complicit.

So whether it is less services or higher taxes, we are all going to pay.

If you want specific companies, you should look to ones that have the majority of their earnings from abroad. If you have UK exposure, you probably would want less exposure to Government spending and perhaps less exposure to the UK consumer. In all these, you should spread your risk.

As an investor, weaker sterling is actually good news because translated back overseas earnings are worth more to you.

The interesting thing is if you go back to 1974 - obviously there was a hung parliament in February of that year - sterling bottomed against the dollar a month before the election and if you look at sterling/dollar at the moment its just been gradually creeping up over the last couple of weeks.

So you could very well say sterling might have actually already bottomed - although I am not predicting that.