Ruffer CIO: Asset management industry today as risky as bank leverage in 2008

QE facilitated transfer of risk

Henry Maxey, chief investment officer at Ruffer, has warned the asset management industry is now the epicentre of risk in the financial system, equivalent to the risk posed by the bank leverage during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC).

In a note to clients entitled Behind the Illusion of Stability, Maxey said the decade of quantitative easing since the GFC had "distorted behaviour" and facilitated the transfer of risk from the banking sector to asset management. In particular, the CIO said risk is no longer a consequence of leverage being applied to assets, as was the case in the GFC, but instead leverage is, "in effect", embedded in assets. However, he warned that many in the industry have a false sense of security with regard to leverage risk. "Shaped by 2008, investors and system watchers are always now on the...