Margin pressures dull auto industry outlook

The growth in the internet, the single currency and the strong pound are having a detrimental effect on car manufacturers. Consumer power is squeezing margins as pricing anomalies become clearer to car buyers. Over the year to 31 January the FTSE Eurotop 300 index rose 23.3% in euro terms as the automobiles subsector within it fell 13%. Gartmore is underweight as it expects the poor performance of the sector to continue in 2000. Guillaume Rambourg, fund manager at Gartmore, believes the sector will no longer benefit from a strong pound. He says: "In the past firms have benefited from payi...