Best bets for Isa season

As the international markets settle into the new year, we find out what fund managers are predicting for 2002 and name the companies to look out for in the major markets across the world

At the beginning of last year, interest rate cuts made cyclicals a clear investment theme, but earnings disappointments meant that, by April, a more defensive approach had come to the fore. The impact of 11 September and the accelerated monetary easing that followed returned the focus to cyclicals once more. Mike Felton, manager of the RSA Equity fund, says the hope is that the second quarter of this year will see a stabilisation in earnings. 'This will provide the market with a greater investible universe of stocks,' he says. 'but it will depend on the extent of any discounting among th...