Avoiding the ugly currencies

Mark Colegate questions Paul Brain on the strategies behind his currency plays

Paul Brain took over as lead manager of the Newton International Bond fund in December 2008 following the departure of Stewart Cowley to Old Mutual Asset Management. Since then one of the changes he has been making is to position the fund to take advantage of currency plays What are the main sources of return for this fund? It is a global sovereign fund so it tends to invest in government bonds only. Most of its return comes from duration management, interest rate exposure, but also from a global currency exposure. As a result, it is a very high-quality fund. You get very negligible e...