- Macroeconomic factors still have a large bearing on returns
- How well can funds navigate such shifts?
Whether it's selling good companies in a crisis or getting too closely caught up in boardroom antics, professional investors' mistakes have much to teach us. But getting a big call wrong can also be extremely painful.
That much has been obvious in the case of Allianz Strategic Bond (GB00B06T9362), whose manager, Mike Riddell, has taken up a job at another company this month. The fund generated enormous returns in 2020 thanks to some savvy calls, but has suffered a rough run of performance more recently. That has stemmed in large part from Riddell ramping up duration (the fund's sensitivity to interest rate moves) in the belief that monetary policy would loosen.