Invesco Perpetual's head of investment Neil Woodford said his favoured defensive blue chip names have recently delivered some confident trading updates, despite tough macroeconomic conditions.
Here the head of investment, running the £11bn High Income and £8.7bn Income funds, explains why he is still backing mega-cap stocks in the traditional defensive sectors, and outlines his favoured stocks' strategies for growth in 2012. 1. Imperial Tobacco Woodford predicts the tobacco sector is on track for strong earnings growth in 2012. However, he noted Imperial’s shares underperformed in the first quarter of this year. Imperial CEO Alison Cooper said the firm’s Q3 results reflected “the strength of our total industry portfolio and our ability to use this unique asset to dr...
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