How I made 90% from European equities in three volatile years

Adrian Bignell's decision to avoid financials and overweight small- and mid-cap stocks helped him beat his European sector peers over the last three years.

The manager of the £30m Invesco Perpetual European Opportunities fund has delivered 88.9% in the three years to 11 November compared to a sector average of 23.1% over the period. One of Bignell’s major calls was to go underweight financials at the tail end of 2009, a move which has boosted performance following this year’s bank shares sell-off. “We have around 6% in financials, while the market weighting is actually about 22%, and we have been underweight there since the end of 2009,” he said. “There were a number of headwinds for banks and they have now been forced to de-leverage ...