Snowden bought French banks ahead of the rally

Stephen Snowden has upped risk on the Kames Investment Grade Bond fund by "aggressively" increasing exposure to banks and topping up high yield on the view the bottom of the market has already been reached.

The manager, who began working on Kames Capital fixed income range in July, had been "very underweight" financials since the summer but started adding exposure in early October after "questioning his position". "I spoke at a conference a few weeks ago and the feedback from the delegates was that all the managers, irrespective of asset class and including me, were bearish, which is usually a sign that the market is ripe for a bounce." At the start of the month Snowden moderated his underweight position by removing all protection and adding some RBS and insurance paper from the likes of...