Merryn Talks Money

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 books offering investment advice, and the authors didn’t come away very impressed. Too much of it, they write, offers false hope to an audience desperate to change themselves and their lives without putting in the work.
Want to get rich quick? Knight says don’t bother with the actual investing—just write a best-selling book telling others how to do it. The authors say much of the advice doled out by generations of writers is remarkably similar: look for value, don’t pay too much in commissions, don’t over-trade, and don’t fall for fanciful stories.

Common sense, in other words.
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It’s that time when analysts unveil their forecasts for 2025. But every year, Saxo Bank releases a different type of prediction—not of events likely to happen, but rather those that probably won’t. But if they do—they would send shockwaves across financial markets. So it’s good to start talking about the possibility.
Saxo Chief Macro Strategist John Hardy joins this week’s Merryn Talks Money to discuss the list, which includes Nvidia ballooning to twice the value of Apple and Donald Trump crushing the US dollar.

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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 inflation.
Believing that was a “big mistake,” King says it’s brought the UK economy to where it is: inflation at multi-decade highs and the BOE having its credibility questioned.

According to King, it’s likely that—despite all money supply indicators signaling the consumer price index will soon be falling fast—the BOE will keep raising rates and the UK will end up in a recession. The central bank will have made the misstep “in both directions over a period of three to four years.” He points out that whether rates go up or down a little over the next year won’t change the fact that they are likely to remain far above the historical lows to which people are accustomed. And that suggests all asset prices are going to have to come down relative to income.

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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 seen in inventory levels, factory prices in China and the labor market. He argues that it’s also reasonable to think the Fed will turn to monetary easing in the not-too-distant future, claiming the central bank has become politicized.

Going forward, he warns that if interest rates stay too low this time around, there’s every chance of another inflation explosion. So what should investors do? Pellegrini says look at energy and look at agriculture. And if you ever have to choose between gold or Bitcoin, choose gold, he says. We can be almost certain people will still value gold in a decade, says Pellegrini. We can’t say that about Bitcoin.

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This week, we bring you a lightly edited version of Merryn's panel at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh called "The Butcher, the Brewer, the Baker and Merryn Somerset Webb." It was held at Panmure House--Adam Smith's residence between 1778 and 1790. We taped this panel on August 26, 2023. Guests include: Russell Napier, Anna MacDonald and James Anderson.
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