He says: “High street names have been decimated. However, if you buy an S&P ETF today, Amazon’s exposure is about 1.9%. If you add up all the companies Amazon is disrupting, it’s about 10% of the S&P.
“If you buy an ETF you are effectively shorting Amazon and going long those retail names.
“We are in an era where selectivity has come back and one of the problems with passive investing is it allocates to the good companies and the bad. It may always be a part of people’s portfolios but I think you should have at least some active.”
Active selection allows Wintle to utilise his strategy of holding 70% ‘core’ positions and 30% tactical positions, which he can move defensively if and when needed.
“I do like growth – I’m a growth person – but we had a good 2008 because we were defensive. There’s no need to be growth for growth’s sake forever; if we have a serious bear market you want to be defensive.
“I’m trying to be a one-stop shop for US exposure because I think flexibility is important. It isn’t always peaches and cream and when it isn’t, you’ve got to be able to adjust your portfolio accordingly.”
Having experienced the bull market at the end of the ’90s, the following slowdown and later financial crisis, Wintle believes these have all shaped his investment philosophy.
“It’s been quite a tenure from boom to bust, then the big bull market in the early part of the past decade followed by the financial crisis.
“We’ve had QE, which has never really happened before in western economies, so it’s been quite a journey but a really interesting one, and it’s something I really enjoy doing for some reason.”