Richard Woolnough is one of the safest pairs of hands in the bond business. Over the years, his M&G Optimal Income Fund has snowballed in size to €31.7 billion on the back of a series of brilliant strategy calls.

Even Woolnough, however, has found it hard to deal with current conditions now the Federal Reserve is confounding his expectation that US interest rates must rise to stave off wage inflation - and soon. He is convinced there is more pay pressure in the pipeline than appears to be the case, and has positioned his fund accordingly.