“He’s an original thinker, and he’s definitely not afraid of saying what he thinks, even if he’s not always right,” said Jacob H. Schmidt, founder of Schmidt Research Partners.

Mr. Hendry has made  and sometimes lost  money for his investors. Eclectica’s flagship fund, the Eclectica Fund, is up about 13 percent this year, besting by far the average 1.3 percent loss among similar funds.

But returns have been erratic  “too much sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll” for some investors, he concedes. In 2008, the Eclectica Fund was up 50 percent one month and down 15 percent another. Mr. Hendry plans to change that.

The firm bet correctly that the financial troubles plaguing Greece would eventually ripple through to the market for German bonds, considered the European equivalent of ultra-safe United States Treasury securities. But the firm lost money betting on European sovereign debt in the first quarter of last year.

Image Hugh Hendry of Eclectica Asset Management, in his office in Bayswater, London. He says China's days of blistering growth will soon end in a crisis. Credit... Hazel Thompson for The New York Times

Last week, Mr. Hendry was musing about the financial world in his office behind a scruffy shopping mall in the Bayswater section of London. No Savile Row here: He was sporting a white oxford shirt, jeans and blue Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers, along with a three-day stubble and hipster horn-rim glasses.

His latest obsession is China. He likens the country to Starbucks: good at growing quickly but not so good at creating wealth.