Balancing short term pain for longer term gains

Before asking the first question, Julian McManus says that he originally hoped to be a journalist. “But then I graduated into a recession, and nobody was hiring so journalism didn’t pan out. But this is ok as well,” he says with a smile.

Up until recently it seemed like the only thing investors needed to do was to buy large cap US growth and forget about it. Asked about how this period has been for a fund manager with a more balanced approach, Julian McManus says first of all it’s a fair way to frame it. “It’s true that the dynamic was somewhat circular. You had large cap growth showing extraordinary returns on capital and extraordinary margins and that made for a very compelling story, which in turn fuelled a concentration in the market that favoured passive investing. It was only one way