Portfolio Adviser

JP Morgan's Ian Henderson takes Didier Drogba role

by Alan Steel

Tuesday 9 November 2010

So if black clouds are gathering in the economic skies then obviously you want to have a much more defensive team, and if you feel things are a bit more benign economically - despite what experts, pundits and the telly says - you want to be more aggressive.

Taking the analogy further, it's not a bad idea to have some foreigners in your team. A few years ago, if you were building a team like this you would be looking at mainly British players. In fact many people's portfolios today, especially big pension funds and institutional funds like insurance companies, will probably still be over-laden with the bulk of British competitors or players.

We think it's important to look at the world economic situation and the sectors and geographical areas likely to outperform and play better, if you catch my drift.

So, my team right now would look something like this:

Goalkeeper

Sebastian Lyon of Troy. Incidentally, our number one choice previously, David Jane of M&G Cautious Multi Asset, suddenly appeared to go AWOL so we instantly promoted Sebastian Lyon and switched our clients accordingly - free of charge which is another great benefit of the fantasy fund management company.

Back four

Alastair Mundy of Investec, Michael Hasenstab of Franklin Templeton Global Bond, Neil Woodford of Invesco Perpetual High Income and Distribution - perhaps one of the most outstanding defenders of the past twenty years - and at left back Stuart Rhodes, a relatively new kid on the block at M&G Global Dividend.

Incidentally, that gives us a couple of overlapping full backs if you understand the analogy, with Stuart Rhodes probably our Gareth Bale.

Midfield

Right now we would choose three. Robin Geffen of Neptune Global Alpha, Russia and Greater Russia etc; our core midfielder would be Graham French of M&G Global Basics and on the left Angus Tulloch, probably more of a holding midfielder, at First State Asia Pacific Leaders.

Between midfield and the strikers we've got a problem not unlike Manchester City at the moment to the extent there's a huge amount of talent available.

I'd certainly have a place in the team for Harry Nimmo at Standard Life UK Smaller Companies who is a bit like the investment world's Ryan Giggs, and we might share his spot with Bob Yerbury, also no slouch, at Invesco Perpetual Global Smaller Companies.

Up front

Didier Drogba would be Ian Henderson of JPM Natural Resources, perhaps replaced if he gets a wee bit tired by Jonathan Asante at First State Global Emerging Markets Leaders or Charlie Awdry at Gartmore China Opps.

On the left of the strikers we would probably want to have somebody like Ewan Thompson at Neptune Emerging Markets or perhaps Mike Williams from the US at Richmond Core, or Jenny Jones from Schroder US Mid Cap.

Squad players

Someone who can play midfield or attack would be Tom Dobell at M&G Recovery and he'd certainly be in our team, as would be one of the new kids on the block, Peter Kirkman, at JPM Global Consumer Trends. To help at the back we would call on James Harries of Newton Global Higher Income and Tineke Frikkee at Newton Higher Income. It would also be useful to call on Carl Stick at Rathbone's who can probably play in defence and midfield, and that's the sort of squad that we'd be looking at to take our team to the top of the championship.

It's been a pretty good team actually in the past year and a half, not letting in many goals and scoring a good few at the other end.

Article courtesy of Portfolio Adviser
Tuesday 9 November 2010