Dr Wescott, economic consultant to Pioneer Investments and President of Keybridge Research, told delegates at the Morningstar Conference that a Clinton win was most likely and she would probably be an "unexciting" manager of the economy.

Speaking to hundreds of delegates at the Morningstar Investment Conference 2016 at the Park Plaza Hotel in London this afternoon he said that few people really knew what Donald Trump's economic policies would be.

He said: "We really do not know what his economic policies would be and of course what's what scares people."

He said Hillary Clinton's economic policies were better known and likely to be "more of the same."

Looking at global economic prospects he said there was nervousness around energy costs but there were some game changers coming along that could affect the long term future of oil dominance.

A vote by delegates during his session suggested that the price of oil would stay under $70 per barrel a year over the next year. He said his own view was that oil would have a trading range over the next year of $41 to $55 a barrel.

Game changers in energy, he said, would include hugely improved productivity on US shale oil and the rapidly reducing cost of solar power, particularly in sunny US states such as Arizona. The rapid development of "utility-level" battery systems able to save power generated by wind and solar power would herald massive investment in new energy technologies of perhaps "half a trillion dollars."

On the oil front he said it seems likely that Opec would pump more oil to try to restore its market share but it would struggle to reassert its dominance.

Coal was in a "death spiral," he said