Merryn Talks Money

For your summer listening, the Merryn Talks Money team brings you an episode from another podcast you might like: In the City . This week, Francine Lacqua speaks to a panel of Bloomberg experts including Bloomberg Opinion columnist Marcus Ashworth, reporter Tom Rees, and Ana Andrade of Bloomberg Economics. They discuss the central bank’s strategy and what moves the monetary policy committee might...

This week, we bring you an earlier interview by Merryn Somerset Webb of Bloomberg's Merryn Talks Money , originally recorded in November 2021 as part of the MoneyWeek podcast. It's a conversation with Vivek Ramaswamy, author of Woke, Inc., biotech entrepreneur and a far-right candidate for the 2024 Republican Party nomination. We're republishing it because the populist themes discussed in the inte...

Is it time to get out of passive funds and switch to their active brethren? Or should you dump equities entirely and find a nice savings account that pays 4%? While the latter means you won’t be maintaining the real value of your capital, at least you won’t lose too much of it. And what of silver or gold, or perhaps even Bitcoin? If you had to choose one, which would it be? And, just to ask, how a...

Former Governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King says the central bank hasn’t been covering itself in glory of late, and that’s partly thanks to it falling victim to groupthink. The economics profession is jammed with brilliant people, he argues on this week’s episode of Merryn Talks Money , but unfortunately, they’ve all been taught the same thing: money has absolutely nothing to do with inflat...

Inflation in the US is going to continue falling, says founder of Intertemporal Economics Brian Pellegrini, and much faster than one might think. He joins Merryn Somerset Webb on this week’s episode of Merryn Talks Money to share his predictions. Indeed, the rate of inflation will drop so quickly that it will unnerve the US Federal Reserve, he says. Pellegrini contends signs of the decline can be...

A decade ago, it was almost impossible for private investors to buy into private equity with the professionals. Most PE funds require huge minimum investments and long-term commitments. Good managers also don’t come cheap. Now, however, there are more ways for private investors to get into the unlisted sector. There are funds and trusts that buy individual private companies alongside listed ones,...

The idea that history is cyclical is hardly new. But exactly what drives those cycles is up for debate. On this week’s Merryn Talks Money , Peter Turchin, author of End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites and the Path of Political Disintegration, suggests he’s solved the puzzle.  Sign up to John Stepek's daily newsletter Money Distilled. https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/uk-wealth   See omny...

The Bank of England has a vision for the digital pound. But first, it has to decide whether “Britcoin” is worth building in the first place.  The BOE wants to make a cash-like alternative to the banknote—an instrument that works like cash and holds its value but won’t accrue interest or become a tool of speculators. Right now, the bank is seeking input from Britons on whether such a central bank d...

Active fund management isn’t just about maximizing upside for your shareholders, says Gervais Williams, head of equities at Premier Miton Investors. It’s also about minimizing downside risk. On this week’s Merryn Talks Money with Merryn Somerset Webb, he lays out just how to do that.  Plus John Stepek joins to discuss the Bank of England's rate hike and inflation expectations.  Sign up to John Ste...

There’s a material world people don’t think about all that often. It’s the one that provides the raw metals and chemicals that keep economies and societies moving. But, as Ed Conway, the economics editor of Sky News and author of Material World , says, people need to start thinking about it a lot. He joins this week’s Merryn Talks Money to discuss the six materials that shape our lives, and how th...

It’s fair to say that Japan is back and that its deflationary years are arguably behind it. The Asian nation may also be in just the right place to win big on today’s shifting geopolitical landscape. Japan is full of high-quality companies, its stock market just hit a 33-year high, and overseas buying exploded last month. But despite these advantages, Japan’s market is still remarkably cheap. This...

The British government is woefully incompetent, says Burnbrae Chairman Jim Mellon. But of course that doesn’t mean you can’t buy UK equities. Mellon tells Merryn Somerset Webb on this week’s Merryn Talks Money that fossil fuel giants Shell and BP are good long-term investments, as are British defense stocks and financial services companies.  Sign up to John Stepek's daily newsletter Money Distille...

Famed contrarian investor Rob Arnott, co-founder of Research Affiliates, has said since the autumn of 2020 that UK shares are a great bargain—in particular so-called value stocks. In a conversation with Merryn Somerset Webb on this week’s Merryn Talks Money , he contends that’s still the case. The 2020s may be the “the decade for diversifiers,” he says—those prepared to move out of mainstream stoc...

Inflation will eventually come down, but not rapidly or in the way it would have in previous years. So says Sharon Bell, managing director and senior European equity strategist at Goldman Sachs. She tells Merryn Somerset Webb on this week’s Merryn Talks Money that the reason for this state of affairs is specifically the tight labor market, and more broadly the demographics of the Western world. Si...

Are we getting to the point where central banks are starting to break economies? Dario Perkins, Managing Director on the Global Macro team at TS Lombard, asks that question in his conversation this week with Merryn Somerset Webb on Merryn Talks Money . He says central banks are losing control of their own tools, and that policymakers may drive their economies into recession.  Sign up to John Stepe...

Investment trusts are special, says Simon Elliott, client director at J.P. Morgan Investment Trusts. They have a strong history of outperforming other types of investment vehicles. They provide pools of genuinely permanent long-term capital. They come with boards of directors whose specific job is to look out for investors. And on this week’s Merryn Talks Money , Elliott argues that, right now, an...

Dambisa Moyo is an economist and board member of Chevron and 3M. She’s also author of the 2018 book  Edge of Chaos . In this week’s episode of  Merryn Talks Money , Moyo and host Merryn Somerset Webb discuss whether the world has finally slipped off the edge.  Moyo says it feels that way. Most economies were already stagnating before the pandemic struck, she says. Growth was trending downwards, pr...

There’s not much you can do right now to dramatically improve your personal finances. But there’s at least one thing you can get on top of: cash savings accounts. You can now get 3 or 4% a year on your money if you look around. Take the easy win and move, says Simon Edelsten, manager of the Artemis Global Select fund, on this week’s episode of  Merryn Talks Money .  This shift is symptomatic of th...

During the Panic of 1907, J.P. Morgan came up with a clever plan to slow the ongoing bank run. He told his tellers to count all the money twice before handing it over. The more time paying out the cash took, the more time there was to work on rebuilding confidence before money ran out. Of course, that kind of tactic can’t work anymore, Ruffer Investment Director Duncan MacInnes explained on this w...

Sebastian Lyon says he’d been expecting inflation to rise for a long time. So when prices began to tick up, his firm was ready. Now the founder and chief investment officer of Troy Asset Management says be prepared for inflation to stick around awhile. Lyon says rates can still fall, and not every part of the economy that thrived in a low-interest environment will run into trouble. So what’s at ri...

British pension funds used to have up to 55% of their assets in UK equities. That might have been too much. Now it’s more like 5% (and 70% in US equities). That might be too little. Why? Because those UK equities are cheap and US equities are expensive, explains Temple Bar Investment Trust Portfolio Manager Ian Lance on this week’s episode of  Merryn Talks Money . He also argues that there’s an in...

In an earlier episode of Merryn Talks Money , reporter Neil Callanan joined the podcast to talk house prices. It’s fair to say his outlook for the UK housing market was not optimistic. It is, he said, entirely possible that prices across the UK will end this cycle down 40% in real terms (adjusted for inflation). This week, Bloomberg Opinion writer Marcus Ashworth joined Merryn Somerset Webb and Jo...

The world has been mired in a new Cold War for at least four years, according to Niall Ferguson, a columnist for  Bloomberg Opinion  and Milbank Family Senior Fellow. Ferguson joins this episode of  Merryn Talks Money to discuss the implications for inflation, the Federal Reserve and how investors should navigate the current economic climate.  Sign up to John Stepek's daily newsletter Money Distil...

Inflation isn’t heading back to 2%, according to Pippa Malmgren, author and former adviser to President George W. Bush. She says it’s more likely to stay around 4 to 5%. Why? Malmgren contends that it’s because the main problem facing economies today is tied to supply and demand, and that means traditional inflation-fighting tools won’t really work. Malmgren joins this week’s episode of Merryn Tal...

The industry of providing people with investment advice has been around for a long time. Just how long is the subject of this week’s Merryn Talks Money . Host Merryn Somerset Webb speaks with Peter Knight and Helen Paul, two of the five authors of  Invested: How Three Centuries of Stock Market Advice Reshaped Our Money, Markets and Minds. The new work is a review of centuries of pamphlets and book...