This fund will benefit from rising interest rates

Financial stocks have underperformed but the sector might be in for an upswing, says Max King. Buy this trust to benefit.

city of london skylie
(Image credit: Getty Images)

For much of the past two decades, banks have been poor long-term investments as shown by the shrinking weight of the sector in the FTSE 100. Two decades ago banks accounted for four-fifths of the 27% weighting of financials in the index. Today financials account for just 18% of the FTSE 100 in total. 

Stringent regulation, tax raids by opportunistic governments and a need to evolve rapidly in the face of technology are just a few of the headwinds that have held back the sector over the past 20 years, but after this extended period of underperformance, positive signs are starting to emerge.  

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Max King
Investment Writer

Max has an Economics degree from the University of Cambridge and is a chartered accountant. He worked at Investec Asset Management for 12 years, managing multi-asset funds investing in internally and externally managed funds, including investment trusts. This included a fund of investment trusts which grew to £120m+. Max has managed ten investment trusts (winning many awards) and sat on the boards of three trusts – two directorships are still active.

After 39 years in financial services, including 30 as a professional fund manager, Max took semi-retirement in 2017. Max has been a MoneyWeek columnist since 2016 writing about investment funds and more generally on markets online, plus occasional opinion pieces. He also writes for the Investment Trust Handbook each year and has contributed to The Daily Telegraph and other publications. See here for details of current investments held by Max.