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Merryn Somerset Webb archive
Merryn started her career as an institutional broker at SBC Warburg in Tokyo. She later started writing on financial matters for the The Week magazine before taking on the role of launch editor for Moneyweek, now one of the UK’s most popular financial magazines.
Today she continues to edit Moneyweek, has columns in the Sunday Times and Saga Magazine and is a frequent radio and television commentator on markets and investment.
Home sour home
I HAVE been writing here for years now about all the horrors that are finally coming to light – the end of the credit bubble, recession in America and so on.
Date of publication 02/04/2008 12:09 Nuclear energy THERE’S much talk these days about how everything from solar energy to wave energy and giant offshore wind farms are “the future”. And maybe they are. Date of publication 27/03/2008 12:35 Just go with the grainTHERE is now little getting away from the fact that the good times are gone. Date of publication 18/03/2008 17:13 It’s a stinker of a yearTHIS time last year, house prices were still rising fast and estate agents in London were swearing that 40% annual rises were both acceptable and sustainable. Date of publication 03/03/2008 12:19 Warren Buffett’s test of healthFOR someone who’s frequently and accurately cited as one of the world’s greatest investors and hailed as a guru by millions, Warren Buffett hasn’t exactly been splashing his cash about over the past few years. Date of publication 26/02/2008 15:34 I’m nuts about BrazilThese days everyone wants a piece of Britain. Hedge fund managers and bonus-rich bankers have long sought status in owning hobby farms, but now that soft commodity prices – from wheat to meat – are soaring, big commercial farmers from Denmark and Ireland are getting in on the game too. Date of publication 19/02/2008 12:34 Electricity supply is a real power struggleIMAGINE living near the sea, where the weather is nice all year round, where a four-bed-room house with a lovely garden and direct beach access costs you a mere £100,000 and where the kind of cash that buys you a few hours baby-sitting in Britain gets you a full-time housekeeper. Sounds nice, right? Date of publication 11/02/2008 16:59 The markets offer no safety in a stormAT a lunch just before Christmas, a well known fund manager told me that 2008 would represent one of the best chances ordinary people would ever get to make a “material difference” to their wealth. Date of publication 04/02/2008 17:17 Asia is no safe havenSo many myths have been shattered in the past few weeks, it’s hard to know where to begin. Date of publication 29/01/2008 12:50 Food, profitable foodTIMES are tough in Japan. Not only do its residents have to put up with regular doses of bad economic data and a stock market that – unjustly – has spent the year so far in freefall, but now the prices of most of their favourite foods are soaring too. Date of publication 21/01/2008 11:35 Shares have a way to go before rock bottomAT the end of last year I had started suggesting that cash might be no bad thing to hold in 2008. So far so good. If you are holding cash you are at least evens on the month so far, but if you’ve been in the stock market you’ve lost money – and in many cases quite a lot of money. Date of publication 14/01/2008 10:47 Your pound in a pickleIN November and December last year it was all but impossible to turn to the feature pages of the papers without reading about the joys of shopping in America. Date of publication 08/01/2008 17:58 Winning with AfricaTHIS is a tricky time of year for anyone who writes about money - the time to flick through the year’s columns and admit what went wrong and why. But let’s start with what went right. Date of publication 23/12/2007 17:54 This is a bears’ partyON the Today programme on Radio 4 last Thursday, Tim Congdon of Lombard Street Research told me he wouldn’t consider the current state of the financial system worthy of the word crisis. Date of publication 19/12/2007 17:17 Be a clever giverCHRISTMAS is supposed to be the season of giving, but when it comes to actually doing so most of us are horribly confused. Date of publication 18/12/2007 15:56 I’m stopping shoppingFEEL like shopping today? No, nor do I. My finances are just fine. I don’t have a mortgage (we rent), I’ve got plenty of savings, my outgoings are smaller than my income, my job is fairly secure and I’ve sold out of most of my stock market-related investments. Date of publication 03/12/2007 15:41 A plague on housesNOT long now, a fund manager said to me the other day on the way out of a round table debate on the future direction of stock markets (the consensus was that markets will be down). Not long until what? Until you can finally buy a house, he said. Date of publication 28/11/2007 17:01 Art will hit the canvasABOUT seven years ago I fell in love with a piece of art at a private view in Shoreditch.Date of publication 18/11/2007 17:11 Avoid City rip-offsWORKING in the City is mostly boring. Analysts fiddle with balance sheets, wondering what might happen if you moved a number here or there; brokers tell clients much the same stories about the same stocks every day; fund managers buy and sell the same stocks as they go up and down; and traders do much the same – just faster. Apart from the money, not many of these jobs have a lot going for them. Date of publication 12/11/2007 12:24 Time to bet on EuropeA FAVOURITE topic of desperate property magazines and supplements these days are the bargains on offer in the US.Date of publication 05/11/2007 11:37 Out of my Facebook!TIDYING out a few drawers of papers with the help of some toddlers at the weekend I came across a fascinating piece of paper. It was the notes to go with the invitation to the Paribas (now BNP Paribas) Christmas party in 1999, when I was working there as a stockbroker. Date of publication 29/10/2007 16:40 The trouble with IndiaI’VE been going on about the risks of investing in property for far too long now, but I’m no longer such a lone voice. The Money section is filled with bad news this week.Date of publication 25/10/2007 17:24 Land of the rising stockI STARTED suggesting that investors buy into Japan in early 2004. Nothing happened for a while, but at the end of that year it started to look like a brilliant call. Date of publication 18/10/2007 13:07 Time to rent, not ownBACK in January when I finally managed to sell my flat to a more-money-than-sense foreign buyer I registered my details with all the local estate agents.Date of publication 04/09/2007 11:36 Asia’s lesson for the West
I do not normally have a good memory, but I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing 10 years ago tomorrow. Date of publication 02/07/2007 00:00 The Chinese Las VegasWHEN I was a stockbroker I used to go to Hong Kong every few months. I’d fly in from Tokyo and spend two days having a series of excruciatingly dull meetings. Date of publication 25/06/2007 00:00 Finding the silver liningI have been reading two interesting publications this week. The first comes from Capital Economics and is called Global Inflation Watch.Date of publication 14/06/2007 11:14 Go off the beaten trackOVER the past year or so I’ve become increasingly obsessed with investing via exchange-traded fundsDate of publication 04/06/2007 11:57 Bubbles are everywhereLAST year the Chinese market rose 130%. This year it’s already up another 45%.Date of publication 21/05/2007 00:00 Property is not a pensionI HAVE been out and about discussing money a lot over the past few weeks, promoting my new book on women’s attitudes to cash, and time and again the conversation has returned to how everyone believes their property is their pension.Date of publication 14/05/2007 00:00 Women and money don't mix Green bags, Kate Moss shorts. Oh, grow up girls, says Merryn Someret Webb Date of publication 09/05/2007 00:00 Avoid the pain in Spain In January, Dresdner Kleinwort, the investment bank, published a report called Spain: when will it end? Last week they may have got their answer. Date of publication 30/04/2007 00:00 Love is a ring from Argos My engagement ring has a platinum band on it, so my husband and I agreed that my wedding ring would also be made of platinum. Date of publication 23/04/2007 00:00 Why big isn’t beautiful IT HASN’T been a great Isa season for the big fund managers. Date of publication 16/04/2007 00:00 Profit and save the planet I SPENT most of Wednesday morning high up on the London Eye doing occasional broadcasts for the BBC on budget-related subjects. Date of publication 26/03/2007 00:00 A hot tip from the Antarctic Regular readers will know that I am oddly interested in fish farming. I’ve written here before about the resurgence of the salmon trade. Date of publication 11/03/2007 00:00 Beat the field and put shares into ploughs THE odd thing about the mini-crashes across the markets over the past week is the way nobody can make up their mind exactly about the cause of it all. Date of publication 05/03/2007 00:00 Private equity's secret recipeIt used to be that when you looked for an investment, you sought out a company you thought had more value in it than the share price reflected.Date of publication 20/02/2007 00:00 Time to make a killing in Japan
The Japanese stock market had a bad year in 2006 but there is every reason to think this should change. Date of publication 04/02/2007 00:00 Making money from apathy
FIGURES out last week claimed that 1.8m British adults never review their financial situation. That isn’t true, of course.Date of publication 28/01/2007 00:00 Quit while you're ahead
IT MUST be irritating for Gordon Brown that during his long wait for Tony Blair to go, his reputation as an economic manager is taking a battering. Date of publication 22/01/2007 00:00 When oil runs out, go nuclear
I THINK I have got to the bottom of why City salaries are so high: it’s because of the regular humiliation the recipients of the cash have to put up with. Date of publication 15/01/2007 00:00 Switching is worth the stress IT IS all very well getting your investments right, but most of us are losing out by having the wrong mortgage, the wrong broadband and gas suppliers and the wrong savings accounts than we ever make from shares. Date of publication 07/01/2007 00:00 Holiday hotspots are no property mecca ONE of the consequences of the general bull market in all asset classes of the past few years is that when the price of something falls, nobody seems to worry much. Date of publication 04/12/2006 00:00 Private-equity players up the ante again THE new James Bond film out last week may have received splendid reviews, but it has also made Hugh Hendry of Eclectica Asset Management nervous. Date of publication 27/11/2006 00:00 Mid-term blues: it was the economy, stupid WHEN the news came in from America’s mid-term elections last week, the headlines were pretty clear on what had caused the Republicans’ heavy losses: the war. But that isn’t what the polls of voters really said. Date of publication 12/11/2006 00:00 Hey big spenders — it's time to get real SELF-RESTRAINT has become an alien concept to large numbers of British women. We want things — the “must haves” we see in the magazines and newspapers — and so we just get them on credit. Date of publication 06/11/2006 00:00 Christmas is cancelled When Christmas company Farepak went into administration last week (for reasons that remain unclear) its customers were completely shocked: 170,000 of them had been saving for their Christmas presents and meals through the firm and had put in an average of £200 each — some a great deal more. Date of publication 23/10/2006 00:00 Hardly a model investment I’m quite sad about the state of the hedge-fund industry. When the hype started it all sounded so good. Date of publication 16/10/2006 00:00 The perils of 'diworsification' One of the investment world’s great heroes is David Swensen, the man who has managed Yale University’s endowment money since 1987. Date of publication 11/10/2006 00:00 Oil is still a long-term buy I’ve just come back from a two-week holiday during which I read no newspapers, watched no television, listened to no radio and had absolutely no conversations whatsoever about the world’s financial markets. It was an absolute delight. Date of publication 02/10/2006 00:00 US loss may be Asia's gain AT the end of last year, looking forward to this year, I limited myself to just one prediction for safety’s sake: that the American housing bubble would deflate and the US consumer finally start to lose confidence. Date of publication 10/09/2006 00:00 A new way to gain from grain THIS column is not known for its readiness to praise the financial-services industry, so readers may be surprised to find that today I bring good news. Date of publication 03/09/2006 00:00 Take a lesson from the chavs THERE’s a new fashion outrage doing the rounds of the chav community — its members have started keeping the price tags on their clothes so that everyone can see them all the time. Date of publication 29/08/2006 00:00 A very liquid investment I’M IN the mountains in the south of France. I’m supposed to be on my summer holidays, but I can’t go outside because the rain is so heavy I’d be drenched in seconds. Date of publication 21/08/2006 00:00 Sympathy for the £800,000 woman A FEW weeks ago Beverley Charman suddenly found herself in possession of £48m. Then a few days later Helen Green was handed a cheque for £800,000. Date of publication 14/08/2006 00:00 You need a calamity account THE e-mail inboxes of personal-finance journalists can make for terrifying reading. Date of publication 07/08/2006 00:00 End of the American dream? IT IS an unusual state of affairs, but the fund-management community has come over all miserable. Date of publication 31/07/2006 00:00 It's picking markets that matters THE more I think about investing, the more I wonder why we humour the financial-services industry as much as we do. Date of publication 24/07/2006 00:00 Africa's time is still to come THE first anniversary of the Gleneagles G8 summit, which was supposed to end poverty in Africa, passed relatively unnoticed a few weeks ago. Date of publication 17/07/2006 00:00 How to be the next Buffett
A few weeks ago I wrote about the weird way in which all fund managers consider themselves to be value-investing contrarians. The fact that so few actually are is made clear by all the hoo-ha surrounding the retirement of Anthony Bolton, who has been managing Fidelity’s Special Situations fund since 1979, and over that time has managed to turn an initial investment of £9,000 into £130,000. Date of publication 11/07/2006 00:00 Asia is set to go nuclear
ASIAN markets have not been kind to investors this summer -many are still 20% off the highs they hit this year. Date of publication 03/07/2006 00:00 My Property Pram Test I USUALLY take my little daughter for her afternoon walks in central London’s Hyde Park, but as the summer has gone on we have found it less and less peaceful. Date of publication 27/06/2006 00:00 Land of rising confidence Visit Japan today and you’ll find it booming. Tokyo’s restaurants are once again dropping bits of gold leaf into miso soup and its shops are packed with people buying luxury goods as fast as they can be manufactured across the water in China. Date of publication 18/06/2006 00:00 I still predict a golden age When I was at university, one of the biggest complaints from professors and the non-finance companies that turned up on the milk round looking for graduate trainees was that the best students wanted to go into the City. Date of publication 11/06/2006 00:00 Happiness is a cheap frock A SURVEY out last week in Institutional Investor's Alpha magazine showed the salaries of the world's top hedge-fund managers. I had to read it a few times before I really believed it. Date of publication 04/06/2006 00:00 A warning from nowheresville LAST week was an important one for the residents of Omaha. For most of the year this mediocre little town in Nebraska is of no interest to the rest of the world, but last week its airport was a hive of activity, its hotels were booked out and you couldn't get a reservation in any of its uninspiring restaurants for love nor money. Date of publication 15/05/2006 00:00 There's no magic wand o to get us out of debt THE illusionist David Copperfield is a truly remarkable man. Mugged at gunpoint in Florida last week, he apparently used "magic" to make the robbers think that his pockets were empty. They gave up and ran away, leaving him still in possession of his wallet.Date of publication 30/04/2006 00:00 Real returns, after a fashion IF YOU live in London and like to shop you should thank God for hedge-fund managers. Why? Because one way or another they finance most of the fashionable little boutiques where you do your shopping. Date of publication 02/04/2006 00:00 Don't trust your children I AM not sure I entirely approve of the child trust fund (CTF), despite Gordon Brown's extra dollop of cash for them in the budget. Date of publication 26/03/2006 00:00 The myth of the 22% return Would't it be nice if you could find an investment that would return you a regular 22% a year? And, given how much everyone likes investing in houses, wouldn't it be even nicer if that investment was a property in the UK? Date of publication 06/03/2006 00:00 The coming liquidity crisis Ask any fund manager what liquid is the most important to the global economy and he’ll tell you oil. The tight supply-and-demand situation has pushed prices up to a level that threatens economic growth and is kicking off inflation around the world, he will say. Date of publication 27/02/2006 00:00 Just a blip in the metals markets What’s the difference between a boom and a bubble? The answer is a simple one. A market is showing signs of being in a bubble when prices reach levels that are entirely unjustified by the fundamentals. But it is booming when prices are rising fast but those price rises are justified by the fundamentals. Date of publication 20/02/2006 00:00 The next big China play A few years ago I wrote in this column that one of the best reasons to buy into Japan was because it was “the China play.” China’s new manufacturing plants needed both basic materials and sophisticated machinery, so ship loads of steel, machinery and electronics were pouring out of Japan and into China. Date of publication 13/02/2006 00:00 This dangerous obsession I mention the British obsession with property so often in this column you could be forgiven for thinking I'm obsessed with everyone else's obsession. And in a way it's true. Date of publication 06/02/2006 00:00 Greenspan: why he's not my hero It’s tough being a contrarian these days. All the investments I used to write about, in the happy knowledge that I would be the only one tipping them, have come over all mainstream. Date of publication 30/01/2006 00:00 No need to panic in Tokyo I recently watched the CEO of a large US listed company being interviewed on TV. His life, he told the interviewer, was his work. He looked forward every day to getting to the office because of the endless amounts of fun he had. Date of publication 23/01/2006 00:00 A simple way to make the world a better place Fancy a “free holiday home” or perhaps a few “foolproof investments” to pep up your portfolio in 2006?” Well look no further. Have property sales frim Assetz got a deal for you. Date of publication 16/01/2006 00:00 Soft commodities for 2006 In December most City analysts were assuring us that oil prices wouldn’t be anything to worry about in 2006. The bull run was to be firmly left behind in 2005 and oil would soon fall back to the $40 range, a level at which it could safely be ignored as being both no threat to anyone’s inflation or interest rate forecasts and of no investment interest. Date of publication 10/01/2006 00:00 Nothing to change in 2006
I try not to make too many predictions at the turn of each year on the basis that the more I make the more stupid I am likely to look when the next year comes around.
Date of publication 05/01/2006 00:00 Put an ingot under the tree I have a wonderful book, published in 1977 and left by an Arabist great uncle. It is called Oil Sheiks: Inside The Supercharged World Of The Petrodollar, by Linda Blandford, and traces the path of the money that poured into the Middle East and out again during the last oil boom. Date of publication 19/12/2005 00:00 Why you should still get a SIPP My husband and I spent last weekend in Lisbon. We could have gone anywhere for the weekend. Perhaps Rome, Paris or Prague. But instead, under the impression that it would have a kind of faded charm about it, we chose Lisbon. It wasn’t quite what we expected. Date of publication 12/12/2005 00:00 What the real pessimists worry about December normally makes me happy. I love shopping and I love eating so the idea that Christmas is just around the corner is enough to cancel out pretty much any amount of misery. But not this year. Date of publication 06/12/2005 00:00 Ideas and reality At the FT-Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year awards this week I listened to a speech made by Gordon Brown from beginning to end. Date of publication 28/11/2005 00:00 What China really needs China has been the answer to every question the financial markets have needed to ask for some time now. Date of publication 21/11/2005 00:00 Follow the money not the spending Are you too old for popular culture as soon as you hit your 30s? I used to think not, but I¹m beginning to wonder. You see I don¹t really understand TV ads any more. Date of publication 14/11/2005 00:00 Why no bids for housebuilders? Two stories stood out last week. The first is the fact that the City is once again completely gripped by bid fever. Date of publication 07/11/2005 00:00 A bad omen for investors It¹s hard to put too much store by market indicators for the simple reason that as soon as everyone agrees that a particular indicator works pretty well, it generally stops working as everyone starts trying to act on it at the same time. Date of publication 31/10/2005 00:00 Small but differently formed... If you want to see what’s going on in the UK economy or the market there’s really no need to read the heavyweight financial pages every day. Date of publication 18/10/2005 00:00
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