BUZZ-VIEW FROM THE BUYSIDE: Aviva Investors shorting autos, gambling and retail stocks

** Aviva Investors is shorting the autos sector, as well as companies exposed to disruption at the hands of Amazon

** Speaking at the Reuters Global Investment Outlook Summit, the firm's global head of multi-asset Peter Fitzgerald, who oversees 132 billion pounds in assets, said the autos sector was going through "huge disruption"

** "Electric (Brussels: BE0941746704.BR - news) vehicles may well be the next big thing but there is no guarantee the success of that will come from the existing incumbents," he said

** "Even (Taiwan OTC: 6436.TWO - news) if it does they are going to have to invest materially. That is before you talk about the emissions scandal they are going through which is almost like the LIBOR scandal but with less publicity"

** Depressed valuations in the sector main risk to the trade; hedging by pairing with a long position in the wider stock market index

** Fitzgerald also said shorting Amazon's rivals was an alternative to being long the stock, that currently trades on a PE of 287x earnings

** " struggle to take big long positions in some of these tech businesses that have very high multiples," he said

** Shorting retail stocks and UK bookmakers with physical stores

** Also, bullish on European small/mid-caps and financials; top trade for 2018 long EM v short DM stocks