Expect more jitters in the New Year, says City guru Odey

CRISPIN Odey, who is poised to be the best performing hedge fund manager of the year, has predicted more financial turmoil in 2019 as political chaos grips stock markets.

The financier told The Mail on Sunday his fund will end the year ‘up between 55 per cent and 62 per cent’, placing it top of HSBC’s European hedge fund annual rankings.

The Brexit supporter – who often makes sizeable bets that markets will decline – said the rise of ‘populism’ would continue to send jitters through the City after a rout that has seen the FTSE slump more than 10 per cent since October.

Asked whether the decline – which has seen even sharper falls in the US and Europe – might be what some experts have referred to as an overdue but limited ‘correction’, he said: ‘For most investors the beginning of all downturns feel like a “correction”.

‘For them, it never feels like the beginning of the end.’

He said too much consumer debt, reactionary politics and lack of economic growth were also to blame.

Odey, who once spent £150,000 on a Palladian-style coop for his pet chickens, made millions shorting bank shares in the run-up to the financial crisis. However, he later endured a torrid couple of years after his prediction of a downturn after 2015 failed to materialise.

Recently Odey, who celebrates his 60th birthday next month, has made money from shares in Sky, sold for £30 billion this year, and on contracts betting shares in department store chain Debenhams would fall.