Henderson Global Investors’ Wouter Volckaert has started selling his “star performers” ahead of what he expects to be a market rotation.
The manager of the Henderson Global Trust said the tailwind driving equity markets – easy monetary policy – was slowing, and investors were nervous that corporate earnings growth needed to take over as the key driver.
“Nervousness is leading to portfolio repositioning, which largely consists of profit-taking in stocks that have performed well in recent years, and reinvesting the proceeds in out-of-favour areas,” he said. “The trust’s disciplined selling process has led us to start selling certain star performers… especially stocks for which we saw no further upside, such as Vodafone.”
Mr Volckaert said the portfolio changes meant he had performed well against peers, who he claimed “might have had too much exposure to yesterday’s winners going into this rotation”.
The manager said he had also sold positions in BBA Aviation, Burberry, Buru Energy, Canon, Legrand and Prada.
