Newton's Clay: 'Central banks are becoming impotent and ineffective'

Increased focus on tobacco

Nick Clay, manager of the £4.7bn Newton Global Income fund, has criticised "impotent" central banks, and will retain a large allocation to tobacco stocks in order to protect against their increasingly "ineffective" policy.

Clay (pictured) said negative interest rates, recently introduced by several central banks, force investors into risky assets which often suffer during volatile markets. "Central bankers wrongly think the economy is a controllable machine," he said. "In trying to control it they are making it riskier and the world more fragile. "The consensus view is central banks are omnipotent, but they are becoming impotent, and their finite promises are becoming more and more ineffective." Despite European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi continuing to introduce additional stimulus mea...