Asked if this performance is sustainable, IBOSS’ investment and managing director Chris Metcalfe says that given that much of it has been driven by central banks, he thinks not.
“QE has been the punchbowl which markets have been getting drunk from, and given that the banks want to take away this punchbowl, I doubt the strong returns can continue.”
Merricks agrees the near-term outlook doesn’t look promising for the flood of outperformance to continue, saying the unknown impact of Brexit could hamper markets.
Lowcock meanwhile, believes the prevalence of trackers will eventually push prices too high for a good active manager to buy.
He says: “I think it’s going to be fairly mixed for active managers, there’s still opportunities there and they should perform long term, but as certain areas get more expensive then I expect some good active managers may lag behind.”
