As politicians in the US scrambled to avert the dreaded fiscal cliff, asset managers responded by repositioning portfolios, anticipating 2013 will be a good year for equities

Manuela D’onofrio, UniCredit Private Banking

Robert Farago of Schroders Private Bank (left) and Oliver Gregson from Barclays debate whether investors should head for European or US equities

Markets have reacted favourably to the ECB’s bond buying scheme and investors are taking on more risk, but China’s slowdown is worrying

Rather than dealing in asset classes, investors should be thinking in terms of categories of risk to protect their portfolios

The huge number of European equity funds on offer provides plenty of opportunities, but fund selectors need to be aware of managers’ preferences for their home nation

Worries over the eurozone remain, but European equities are attractively priced, while many of the continent’s large cap companies are well-positioned to make major inroads into emerging Asia

Low risk equities tend to outperform their racier counterparts over the long-term and provide portfolios with much less volatility, thanks to human behaviour

The world’s wealth institutions are planning to increase their allocations to equities, with Asian and Latin American markets looking especially attractive