Aberdeen's Stout: Developed world faces ‘decade of zero growth'

Aberdeen's global equity fund specialist Bruce Stout, manager of the £1bn Murray International trust, has warned investors should be preparing for a decade of no growth in developed economies.

Stout said escalating debt levels in the developed world will take policymakers a decade to overcome, resulting in investors placing greater emphasis on capital preservation as opposed to returns. “It is impossible to perpetually avoid the unavoidable, as the debt-infested developed world has finally discovered, and I believe there will be no domestic growth in the UK, US, or Europe for the next decade,” said Stout. “Western central bankers may intellectually defend the rationale for near zero interest rates, pleading impotence towards the liquidity trap they created, but for the real...