For ever-sceptical fund manager Bruce Stout, the Brexit uncertainties have done nothing to change his world view. As the Bank of England stands ready to loosen monetary policy again he says: “It has generated nothing, why would you do it again? It’s the definition of madness, consistently doing the same thing and expecting a different result.”

According to Mr Stout, global policymaking is already in unknown territory, because nothing about the present is familiar, so none of the past economic models are any use.

A further cut in interest rates is, he says, “completely futile – it won’t do anything except hurt savers further”, adding: “Policymakers are going to have to come up with a bit more creative thinking.”

The 57-year-old Dundonian who has managed the £1.3billion Murray International investment trust for Aberdeen Asset Management since 2004, when the trust was already 97 years old, has always been his own man. Unusually this venerable trust’s managers are allowed to invest wherever they like, and in whatever they like be it equities or bonds, and the one-time BT engineer has taken full advantage. “It’s terrific to have that flexibility, you won’t find a mandate that reflects that, they are all market-weighted which means looking at the things that have done well and weighting them accordingly, but that is no guide to the future.”

The trust grew out of Murray Johnstone, the Glasgow investment house swallowed by Aberdeen in 2000, which Mr Stout joined in 1987 fresh from economics at Strathclyde and six years at BT.

“As a fund manager you take your 30-year experience and use that familiarity to work out a road map for the future from the things you have seen in the past – but none of that is now relevant.”

He says bond values have been pressed to the floor by central banks, regardless of bond quality, helping to explain why equities are still being desperately pursued by investors, regardless of valuations. Corporate profits have been falling for 18 months in the US, yet the market is hitting new highs.

“Any company in the developed world will tell you there is too much capacity in their industry and prices are being forced down, the hardest job they have is to grow their top line. They can’t carry on cutting costs forever, at some time you have to invest to grow but there is no appetite to grow because there is no familiarity out there, therefore they are very very cautious.”

He concludes: “So great care has to be taken in investing money (in equities) on the justification that there is nothing else – there always is something else.

“If you have a simple business in Mexico, India or Brazil in the familiar economic surroundings of inflation, growth, and income growth, with some pricing flexibility, some influence on margins, and less competition, then you have some transparency in its profits and dividends. You can’t find that in Europe, Japan, the US or the UK – that is 95 per cent of the market-cap in the world. Asia is only five per cent and Latin America is not counted. So investors who follow or who are tied to benchmarks have got a real problem.”

Murray International’s goal is preserving capital whilst producing a healthy income, and Mr Stout decided more than a decade ago that the UK was not the best place to do that. By early 2007, when he effectively predicted the crash, the manager had already cut the trust’s 40per cent UK exposure substantially, and the process has continued.

“In the last three years the trust has been actively diversifying, which has hurt, because concentration was driving markets to technology and biotech and healthcare and nobody was interested in a lithium producer in Chile or a consumer products company in Indonesia or an airport operator in Mexico, because they are in areas of the world judged to be higher risk. Combine that with rapidly rising sterling and those were the headwinds Murray International has had.”

The three years to the end of 2015 saw the trust lag behind its official benchmark (not used by the managers but every trust must have one) by a total 30 percentage points. But by the time a strategic review by the trust’s independent board was completed earlier this year, the tide had turned, markets were plunging, the trust was nine percentage points ahead of the benchmark, and Mr Stout’s sober prophecies were once again ringing true.

The trust’s shares have risen by 35 per cent in the past six months, including a boost from the Brexit vote when they were among the biggest risers in the following week. “What has happened this year is that people have started to look for diversification more than in the past,” Mr Stout says.

“Although it was difficult to preserve capital over the previous period, hopefully the diversifying will deliver good returns on capital and income for the shareholders over the future. That is what you have to do in investment, stay focused on the process you follow and on valuations.

“There will be periods when your style won’t be popular in the market but we are not in a popularity contest, we are here to protect and grow savers’ money over the long-term.”

He says: “You have to stand back from Brexit. The UK, regardless of its position in Europe, has its worst current account deficit since records began, it is also struggling with a huge fiscal deficit, it has negative real income growth in the economy and the profitability of many businesses is under huge global competitive threat because the currency has been too strong.”

Although a weaker pound will help, the export sector is now much reduced. “The UK has been living beyond its means for decades, and at some point being hostage to foreign capital will be its Achilles heel. There are more attractive opportunities in Asia and Latin America.”

Come bull or bear market, Mr Stout clearly loves his job. “It’s an honour to be the manager at this time. Murray International has been around since 1907, it has seen and been through a lot. Hopefully it will continue to prosper.”