Gibbs goes short on UK commercial property stocks

Jupiter's Philip Gibbs has opened up a net short position on "overvalued" UK commercial property stocks as the manager develops a number of early themes into his new Absolute Return fund.

Gibbs says he is currently running a reasonable balance between long and short investments, with particular concerns on government bonds. The manager warns sovereign debt could decline as investors weigh up the relatively low yields available on these bonds with the financing problems many governments face. Gibbs believes these difficulties could be significantly negative for markets as a whole. On this theme, the manager has opened up an early short on Japanese debt. “I am actually short of Japanese government bonds, because the Japanese outlook has been downgraded to negative,...