contrarian investor

One of my favourite activities at the end of any volatile year is to look at sectors that have failed to keep up with the pack.

Over the last few weeks I have been spending a lot of time leafing through the details of the IMA's annual industry surveys in search of some big new trends.

This is a column intended to provoke thought, discussion and not abusive emails - it is absolutely not a place to talk about one of my favourite new books, unless of course the book in question happens to be called Value Investing and is written by my...

A few weeks back I had a very amusing drink down some local City boozer with a senior director of a very large investment bank charged with building products and funds to sell to the likes of you and me. Quite the funniest part of the conversation was...

I was recently part of the judging for the Structured Products Awards organised by Investment Week's sister publication Professional Adviser.

I am currently running my own betting book focused on the most difficult job in investment. My current front runner is Mark Fawcett, investment director for the PADA.

Journalists love art and collectibles as alternative investments - trees, pieces of art and funky hedge funds are much more fun to write about than boring old recovery funds or the passive vs active debate.

What exactly constitutes an alternative investment? It is a question we are all struggling to answer in these volatile, highly correlated times, where everything seems so globalised and driven by liquidity flows.

Financial commentators tend to default to a world view determined by the thoughts of Ayn Rand and her enormously influential philosophy called objectivism.

There is a black hole sitting at the heart of many sophisticated investors', wealth advisers' and financial planners' mental world view.