Merryn Talks Money

Dive into the intriguing world where sports meet finance! Hear from icons like Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly as they explore strategic investments and groundbreaking deals. Discover how cultural shifts influence business decisions and gain insights from elite athletes and entrepreneurs. Expect surprises and revelations about the motivations behind significant transactions in the sports industry.

Liz Ann Sonders, managing director and chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, shares her insights on navigating today's turbulent markets. She discusses the complex impacts of the upcoming US elections and recent economic shifts, including inflation and labor dynamics. Sonders emphasizes the importance of disciplined investment strategies like diversification. She also voices skepticism about cryptocurrencies, comparing them to gold, and highlights the unique challenges of small-cap investments in the current climate.

In this engaging discussion, John Stepek, Senior Reporter at Bloomberg and author of Money Distilled, dives into the potential impact of increased employer National Insurance contributions. He explains the recent drop in UK inflation and how one volatile component skewed the data. The conversation also touches on the sustainability of pension policies amid an aging population and contrasting motivations behind economic forecasts. With a mix of humor, they even relate celebrity news to rising inflation trends, making complex topics accessible and entertaining.

This discussion highlights the story of Jack, a first-time buyer navigating the challenges of London’s housing market. The hosts dive into the benefits of Lifetime ISAs, including government bonuses and withdrawal conditions. They explore common misconceptions and the significant hurdles faced by buyers in high-cost areas. The conversation reveals the limitations of financial products like Lifetime ISAs and the implications of residency requirements, all while emphasizing the complexities of making informed investment decisions.

Don’t meet with management, ignore narratives and avoid highly rated businesses—taken together that sounds like a recipe for fund failure. But for Sean Peche, founder and portfolio manager at Ranmore Fund Management Ltd., it’s how he’s consistently outperformed benchmark indices. His Ranmore Global Equity Fund outperformed the MSCI World Index in 2022 and 2023. He joins Merryn this week to talk about his strategy and his market outlook. (Earlier podcast summary incorrectly identified the fund as a hedge fund. It is a long only fund.) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's roundup, Money Distilled newsletter author John Stepek is joined by Bloomberg Opinion columnist Marcus Ashworth. They discuss the UK bond market, particularly the fact that UK 10-year yields are back above those of the US, what signal that sends and what's behind UK borrowing costs going up.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this personal finance edition of Merryn Talks Money, hosts Merryn Somerset Webb and John Stepek discuss diversifying your UK pension.    They lay out scenarios in which your pension could be at risk, and the extent to which it would be protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. And it’s not just important for pensions: these should be considerations for anyone with investments in passive funds and individual savings accounts (ISAs), Webb and Stepek say. Also on this episode, they tackle monitoring your broker’s solvency and how to gauge whether you would have “political protection” should they go bust. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Author and former Bank of England regulatory economist Dan Davies joins this week to discuss his new book, The Unaccountability Machine, which describes how the cost of large organisations deferring decision-making is a widening “accountability sink.” As companies grow more complicated, the bigger the “sink” gets, he argues. “We’ve reached a crisis point.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's roundup, Merryn and Money Distilled newsletter author John Stepek discuss the stock market response to China's unprecedented stimulus package,  where we are now with the UK housing market, and who stands to benefit from the rally in prices and sales. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week’s personal finance edition of Merryn Talks Money, hosts Merryn Somerset Webb and John Stepek discuss pension drawdown with Tom McPhail, formerly the lead pensions spokesman for the investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown. He also led an external review of the Money and Pensions Service on behalf of the UK government’s Department for Work and Pensions. They tackle what drawdown is and how to avoid getting ripped off. But first, we have a look ahead to the autumn budget and what changes to pension pots could be on the horizon.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.