Investors heartened by this summer’s recovery in US equity markets should not relax their guard so soon because corporate debt concerns will probably spark another downturn at the end of this year, one of the world’s pre-eminent volatility specialists has predicted.

While sharply falling equity prices in the first half of the year reflected concerns about future earnings due to inflation, investors have not yet reckoned with the effects of higher interest rates on overly indebted companies, Paul Britton, founder of Capstone Investment Advisors, told the Financial Times.

He warned that news of particular companies struggling to refinance their debt at affordable rates would spook the markets again, probably in the fourth quarter or in early 2023.