fund manager views

If you had not been paying attention to financial markets for quite a few years and then – from this position of naivety – had looked at the eurozone, your likely conclusion would be that the region's equity bourses were offering tremendous value.

Over the past decade, we have endured the tired pessimism that still looms from the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.

Views on US equities seem to neatly fall into two camps.

A quality bias has been the right way to invest in emerging market equities for many decades.

Brexit uncertainty continues to act as a drag on the UK economy, holding back business investment and undermining consumer confidence.

Europe faces several challenges, specifically German manufacturing, trade wars and Italian budgetary pressures.

We believe the move of US dollar/Chinese renminbi above seven during early August is symbolic, and the country has explained it is in response to the US-imposed tariffs on Chinese goods.

Investors have piled into bonds such that more than $15trn worth are now negative yielding if held to maturity – a new record.

Global equity markets' abrupt sell-off, a fortnight ago now, emphasised equity markets' fragility in the latter stages of a mature economic cycle.

No asset has divided opinion in the investor community over the past seven years like government bonds.