Investment Conundrums: Seneca's Peter Elston on avoiding 'fund blow-ups'

Positioning for a global bear market

Many investors are unaware of how significantly monetary policy across developed markets has tightened, according to Seneca Investment Managers' Peter Elston, who echoed warnings this could be a catalyst for a global market downturn in the not-too-distant future.

The chief investment officer and his colleagues at Seneca IM have been reducing risk across clients' portfolios since 2017, at a time when Elston said there were "no visible signs whatsoever" of a downturn.  While he bore the brunt of "quite a lot of stick" when he first started positioning defensively, Elston has continued to increase cash and alternative weightings at the expense of equities, and told Investment Week he now feels "less lonely" in his less-than-bullish macro views. "When you are driving and you get to a bend, when do you break? You do so as you approach it. To be par...