Rice predicts expenditure rise in tech

Chris Rice has moved his Cazenove European fund to an overweight in media, technology and business services ahead of an expected surge in capital expenditure that will benefit the sectors.

He has taken the fund from a neutral weighing in the sectors to an 11% overweight since the start of the year. The manager predicts companies will resume spending on IT and advertising, which he calls soft capital expenditure, as opposed to buying plant, equipment and commodities, as in the last cycle between 2001 and 2009. Rice says each cycle’s expenditure pattern typically concentrates on different areas than the last one. He is focusing on companies that will benefit from spending on advertising, promotion and IT rather than expenditure on increasingly expensive commodities, and i...