Optimistic Burnett goes neutral on banks and euro

Neptune's Rob Burnett has moved from an underweight to a neutral position on banks for the first time since 2009 on his £1.12bn European Opportunities fund in the belief a solution to the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis is "imminent".

The head of European equities began increasing exposure to banks around the beginning of January and moved neutral on the euro as his view on Europe’s debt crisis became more sanguine. He says: “When we look at the fund in terms of valuation across sectors in Europe, there has been a polarised set up in 2010 whereby those with sales to emerging markets did incredibly well, and those without sales to emerging markets performed incredibly poorly. “It was unbelievably polarised, in fact, perhaps the most polarised year, in terms of returns between companies and between sectors in history...