Contrarian Investor: Battle of the unloved assets

Battle of the unloved assets

For the past few years, Investment Week's editorial director Lawrence Gosling and myself have been engaged in a bout of contrarian jousting.

The challenge has been for the two of us to find the most unloved asset class and then champion its phoenix-like renaissance. The first few years of this challenge proved to be hopeless for yours truly as Japanese equities powered ahead, vindicating Gosling’s stubborn conviction.  Last year, by contrast, my own contrarian idea – China – gained ground, and that outperformance has continued into 2015, with local indices such as the CSI more than doubling over the last year. In the short term, Chinese shares might go higher, but a big sell-off is always possible. Yet I would also argue t...