In another contrarian move, he has clung to his overweight position in the US, which is the strongest it has been since Donald Trump’s election. He concedes, however, that he is progressively rotating to “better” value areas such as Europe, or taking profits when he can.
He has witnessed the resurgence of alpha in the US “after many years of poor performance by managers”, with the Old Mutual North American Fund a particular standout.
Across the pond, the UK has not looked as appealing to the Canaccord Genuity team post-referendum but Perera says the team is still finding opportunities in investments trusts “where you can play both the stockpicking and the discount or premium to the net asset value”.
He adds there is value in the UK that can be accessed through funds which target selective sectors. For example, the Polar Capital Global Healthcare Fund, Investec UK Alpha, which invests in retail, and Jupiter’s Global Dynamic Bond, which has also delivered good returns.
However, Perera says the most important thing as a global investor is to create the right blend of managers.
“When you invest globally, there are by necessity a lot of managers you want to include in your portfolio, and yet you want to reduce the number so you don’t dilute the alpha,” he says.
“The blending of these managers within a portfolio is as crucial as their selection. This is still work in progress for our portfolios, as you don’t want to sit on ‘stale’ managers or on a combination of managers that does not work well in the current market.”
