Where will the FTSE100 be in 2014? At the end of 2012, Richard Buxton, head of UK equities at Old Mutual Global Investors, was too modest in his predictions for this year. Will he make the same mistake again?
Stewart Cowley, investment director, fixed income and macro, sees the end of quantitative easing and a return to ‘free markets’ as the key to financial markets in 2014. “The political establishment is no longer subject to the rigours of the market,” he says, something he describes as a ‘democratic deficit’.
In a new video – ‘2014 What Will It Bring?’ – Richard Buxton, Stewart Cowley, John Ventre, head of multi-asset, and Ian Heslop, head of global equities, share their views on the key issues facing investors in 2014. You can view it at www.omglobalinvestors.com/uk-professional
The four are among the most senior and seasoned investors at Old Mutual Global Investors. As a business which empowers its fund managers, we are open to different, even conflicting views, and these are in evidence throughout the video.
Where Cowley sees the risk of bond markets going ‘straight to the end game’ and raising yields to a level appropriate to current economic growth, Buxton’s view is that it will be a gradual process, giving investors time to adjust.
John Ventre and Ian Heslop take very different views on equity markets. Do emerging markets offer fundamental value – or are they a yield play? Is the US rally only starting – or already over-valued.
The video consists of half an hour of discussion and debate covering the end of QE, the sudden recovery of the US and UK economies, the outlook for emerging markets, the risk of another eruption in the eurozone and the impact of looser policy in Japan – the ‘greatest monetary experiment in history’. At the end, Buxton gives his forecast for the FTSE100 in 2014.
Whatever 2014 brings, we hope it will be happy and prosperous.
