The ex-Hargreaves Lansdown research head warns investors to not get ‘trapped’ in their own history

A 48-minute watch. 

Mark Dampier, the recently retired head of research at Hargreaves Lansdown, and a professional with close to 40 years of investment experience, sat down with me for a wide-ranging discussion on some of the big talking points in the industry today.

Mark challenged some misconceptions including the idea that active management will necessarily thrive should we enter another bear market in equities.

“If you’re invested then you’re going to go down just as a passive fund would, maybe more, maybe less,” he said.

“Unless you have a capital preservation mandate, you’re not going to be, say, 15% in cash. So, how is active management going to do so much better in a market crash? That’s unless a fund manager goes into cash, which in itself is lethal because that then means you have to market time”.

Market dilemmas

In terms of pensions drawdown, Mark maintains that many are emotionally ill equipped to handle withdrawing money from risk assets, explaining how some investors suffered when heading for the sidelines during the downturn last March.

Mark also touched upon a possible inflationary threat, and how this could benefit investors in natural resources: “Commodities in the second half of this decade may well be the place to be. They could be the tech stocks of the latter part of the period because if we do get inflation then commodities and gold will go up a hell of a lot”.

He added: “We all get trapped in our own history, when you think the last 10 years are just going to be repeated. US technology might be an obvious place to have money today, but don’t forget other areas”.