Liontrust's Husselbee: Multi-managers must proceed with caution

John Husselbee, head of multi-manager multi-asset at Liontrust Asset Management, says investors will need to start reaping the benefits of diversification in order to meet their objectives.

Traditional asset classes such as cash and fixed interest yield a lot less than the long-term average rate of inflation as a direct result of many years of quantitative easing. This means buyers of these assets may well be signing up for negative real interest rates. A positive real return (to maturity) at these low nominal interest rates would require an environment of stagnant or deflationary prices in the long term – a scenario which we think is unlikely. We prefer to concur with the more upbeat outlook that appears to be priced into the rallying equity market: one of economic grow...