Woodford's successor urges investors to temper hopes for UK equities

ON UK EQUITIES

Investors expecting the FTSE 100 to keep soaring should temper their expectations for growth this year, Invesco Perpetual's Mark Barnett has warned.

Barnett, who takes over Invesco Perpetual's Income and High Income funds in April when star manager Neil Woodford exits to start up his own business, said it would be a struggle for the UK equity market to continue its run higher at anything like the rate seen in 2013. "It is unlikely the performance of the UK stock market over the past year will be repeated over the coming 12 months," he said. Barnett said the unanswered question over the ability of the market to transition from one driven by quantitative easing to one driven by the strength of the underlying economy remained the maj...