Chatfeild-Roberts: Beware of zombies when rates rise

Jupiter's John Chatfeild-Roberts has warned investors not to get carried away with the euphoria surrounding equity markets, saying many companies are being kept afloat by low interest rates.

While equity markets in the US have hit record levels, and UK indices have reached multi-year highs, Chatfeild-Roberts (pictured), head of the Jupiter Merlin Independent Funds team, said there remain a number of companies at risk of collapse if the record amount of support given to economies is withdrawn. "While optimism is currently triumphing over fear, there are still a lot of problems to be overcome in economies such as Spain, Italy and France. "At the corporate level, there are plenty of 'zombie' companies that are being kept alive by low interest rates and we should expect to se...