Merryn Somerset Webb



Profile:
Full name: Merryn Somerset Webb

Area of interest: Personal finance (esp. for women)

Journals: Financial Times, MoneyWeek

Email: [mailto:merryn@ft.com merryn@ft.com] | [mailto:merryns@moneyweek.com merryns@moneyweek.com]

Website: Merryn Somerset Webb | FT.com

Blog:

Representation: contact

Networks:



Biography:
Education: Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University: History & Economics (First); London University - School of African and Oriental Studies: Japanese (MA)

Career: NHK TV (Japan): programme producer, 1992; SBC Warburg: institutional broker, 1993; The Week: finance writer, 1997/1998; worked in the City before joining MoneyWeek at its launch: editor, 2000-; The Sunday Times: financial columnist, 2003/2008; Financial Times: columnist, 2008-
 * see: MoneyWeek: biography

Current position/role: Commentator - commenced in April 2008


 * also writes/written for: writes regularly for Saga Magazine and has also written for the Spectator, Harpers, The Week, and a variety of other magazines

Other roles: Editor of MoneyWeek and also writes a regular column
 * MoneyWeek: articles

Other activities:

Disclosures:

Viewpoints/Insight: Interview by Sophie Morris: My Life In Media: Merryn Somerset Webb - 'Predicting the credit crunch and global recession was relatively easy because it was so obvious. But I have no idea what happens next. It's new economic territory', The Independent, 1st September, 2008

TV/Radio:

Video:
 * C4: SuperScrimpers: Waste Not Want Not. "This new series shows how to scrimp and save in these straitened times", with Mrs Moneypenny. May 2011
 * Frequent radio and TV commentary on everything to do with money, appearances on The Tonight Show, Working Lunch, The Money Programme and BBC Breakfast

Controversy/Criticism:

Awards/Honours:

Scoops:

Other:



Books & Debate:




Latest work: Love is not enough: a smart woman's guide to making (and keeping) money OCLC 173238590, 2008

Speaking/Appearances:

Current debate: 

Financial Times:
Column name:

Column remit/Info: Personal finance (esp. for women)

Section: Your money

Role: Commentator

Pen-name:

Email: [mailto:merryn@ft.com merryn@ft.com]

Website: FT.com / Merryn Somerset Webb

Commissioning editor:

Day published: Saturday

Regularity: Weekly

Column format:

Average length:



Articles: 2011

 * out why we’re washed up... on the beach'' - When the going gets tough, “the tough find a quiet beach and some good books” – so here are my top ten holiday reads about the financial crisis - 23rd July
 * into the gold rush as metals go mainstream'' - I’m getting an unusual number of e-mails about gold, asking how to go about buying it - 16th July
 * go with the Asian flow – invest in Europe'' - We can’t quantify the risks in emerging markets as precisely as we can in Greece - 2nd July
 * UK can learn from Greece’s tragic loss of faith'' - Five years ago, we trusted the big banks to keep our money safe and they trusted each other to stay more or less solvent - 25th June
 * investors can’t see the wood for the trees'' - Emerging market equities aren’t necessarily worth a premium – as investors in a plantation operator and a popular fund are finding - 17th June
 * shareholders are staring at the last straw'' - T his time last year, most people thought interest rates would have risen by now - 11th June
 * housing climate is just as chilly as the costas’'' - The truth is that buying to let in the UK now is no less dangerous than doing so in Spain - 4th June
 * But the cash is still in the bank . . .'' - Your money has to be somewhere and at the moment the risks of holding cash might be lower than the risks of holding too much in other assets - 21st May
 * investors should brush up on geopolitics'' - If you’d asked someone five years ago what they thought was the biggest risk to their portfolio, they wouldn’t have said geopolitics - 14th May
 * dark truths behind gold’s glittering rise'' - More important than the fact that the gold price has reached $1,500, is why it has done so - 23rd April
 * brews between Buffett, Bonner and bullion'' - I wrote a few mild criticisms of Warren Buffett here last week - 16th April
 * turning my back on boring Buffett'' - Back in 2005 after a visit to Warren Buffett’s shareholders’ meeting, I wrote an article in which I was mildly critical. I called the event “boring and irritating” - 9th April
 * out yourself before you worry about the kids'' - Everyone loves the idea of the proposed new Junior Isa - 2nd April
 * will still leave banks in the red'' - Letting banks prune their good loans and pay out ‘spare’ cash in dividends isn’t going to stop me worrying about their solvency - 26th March
 * I’m sticking with Japanese stocks'' - I have long been a fan of the Japanese stock market for the simple reason that unlike every other market in the world, it has been cheap. I’m not changing my mind now - 19th March
 * for sale but where are the buyers?'' - We hear much about the return of 90 per cent and 95 per cent mortgages. But I have yet to hear of a first-time buyer who has persuaded a bank to give them one - 12th March
 * barriers can protect us against stagflation'' - Back in 1962, a writer in one of the UK’s political magazines lamented the fate of US oil companies - 5th March
 * for gold: it is far ahead of electronic money'' - Mostly, when you buy insurance, you hope it won’t ever turn out to be necessary - 26th February
 * nothing normal about today’s markets'' - The vast majority of people suffer from what behavioural scientists call “normalcy bias” - 19th February
 * once, a good thing that can run and run'' - Good things rarely happen in the investment industry - 5th February
 * could price itself out of all sorts of markets'' - Given the wage pressures building behind it, the consumer price index in China might be a tad higher than the official number - 29th January
 * not sure what passes for normal these days'' - Ihaven’t always seen eye to eye with Ken Fisher, the US market guru - 22nd January
 * is no need to fear the China syndrome'' - It obviously isn’t possible for China to grow at 10 per cent a year forever - 15th January
 * reasons to worry – but two reasons to invest'' - On Thursday morning, I started making a list of all the things that might upset the markets in 2011 - 8th January



Articles: 2010

 * yourself: now’s the time to buy real assets'' - The young couple behind me have a technically unemployed friend who makes more money than they do by spending his days digging around in skips for bits of discarded metal which he then sells by weight to the “scrappies” - 18th December
 * spite of debt crisis, Germany is in the zone'' - Back in 1962, most European bankers were mad for monetary union - 5th December
 * Asia implode if America recovers?'' - Can I separate my “beef” with the marketing and costs of Anthony Bolton’s China fund from its actual performance? - 20th November
 * much cash, bubbles and hot potatoes'' - In the end, the Fed didn’t really have a choice - 6th November
 * sensible changes could feather this Nest'' - It’s been a long time in the thinking but the coalition has finally given the National Employment Savings Trust (Nest) - 30th October
 * tenants would benefit from German lessons'' - Germany, where the institutions are active in residential housing, is pretty much the only place that hasn’t had a nasty property bubble in the past decade - 23rd October
 * on blue chips to boost your purchasing power'' - It used to be that if you wanted to get a rate on your savings that would beat inflation you got a cash Isa - 16th October
 * Japanese? I really don’t think so'' - If you want to go against today’s consensus, all of this suggests you should soon sell your western government bonds and buy Japanese equities - 9th October
 * cheers for the product, boos for the charges'' - People in the financial industry are constantly asking me what people want. I always tell them the same thing: products that are simple and cheap - 2nd October
 * self-cert charter could have a bitter result'' - It was perfectly clear even in the 1960s that if you increased access to credit, you’d get a house price boom that wouldn’t necessarily be helpful to first-time buyers - 25th September
 * mind the yield gap – it’s a new kind of normal'' - Are equities cheap? If you believe in the “yield gap”, the answer is yes - 18th September
 * begins to fly when deflation is in the wind'' - Deflation is good for gold prices - 11th September
 * are trumps in a game of poor rates'' - To make good returns over the next few years investors need to find not just high-yielding companies but ones that “commit to realistic dividend growth” too - 4th September
 * of confusion in a flood of deflation data'' - Something has changed. Until very recently the investment world was, for the most part, convinced that the worst was over and that a recovery of sorts had taken hold - 28th August
 * the farm on tractors, not the price of wheat'' - Prices of tea, rice and bacon have risen 30 per cent, 59 per cent and 9 per cent respectively - 21st August
 * whole new angle'' - For those who like their fishing wild and scenic, Shetland can be hard to beat - 7th August
 * at the globe through a glass half full'' - I’m settling into my summer reading: Baillie Gifford’s Rational Optimism - 31st July
 * property no substitute for National Savings'' - The indefinite suspension of National Savings & Investment (NS&I) Index-Linked saving certificates earlier this week has irritated savers. And for very good reason - 24th July
 * lunar or simply moonstruck?'' - Tomorrow is an important day: it marks the start of the next lunar cycle - 10th July
 * is a danger if the coalition stops cutting'' - Merryn Somerset Webb? The Budget went down pretty well - 3rd July
 * – be bold, be brilliant, but keep it simple'' - I rarely find myself  wanting to be a  politician – or to stand  in the shoes of a politician – even for a second. Not so today. Right now, I’d like – for one week and one week only – to be George Osborne - 19th June
 * sensible pension? Yes – if you cap contributions'' - What is the point of providing tax relief on pension contributions? - 12th June
 * a forest: wood is good for you'' - What do you do if you are a rich man in need of a pension fund? - 4th June
 * bought a house: my worst ever financial decision'' - We’ve just bought a house. It is exactly the kind of house we have long wanted to live in - 29th May
 * only currency that can’t be printed on a whim'' - You probably think gold is in a bubble - 20th May
 * wrong kind of quantitative easing?'' - Sterilised QE can still work in that it can affect expectations – with a big new buyer of even the most rubbish of bonds in the market - 15th May
 * markets to bet on when chaos reigns'' - Last week, I wrote here about the crisis in Greece and its likely effects on the eurozone. I didn’t expect any of them to be good. And they haven’t been - 8th May
 * out for more economic dark clouds'' - I was wondering earlier this week if the Icelandic volcanic eruption might have an effect on stock markets - 24th April
 * debacle is not going to go away'' - 10th April
 * nothing isn’t easy'' - Taking a holiday from US and European shares looks like a sensible move – but keeping cash on deposit involves almost as much proactivity as being invested in equities - 3rd April
 * to embrace the government’s backyard bribes'' - Britain’s backyard electricity generation plant plan - 27th March
 * is not the best'' - Today the state pension is paid at such a pathetically low level that anyone living on it alone would be more destitute than secure - 20th March
 * a healthy housing culture'' - Last week, I spoke at the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) conference in Brighton. This was particularly interesting for me as, when I meet property professionals, I am normally meeting property investors - 13th March
 * of cash, currencies and China'' - A friend has sent me an e-mail saying she has just sold her flat in London - 6th March
 * manager, shame about the fees'' - The forthcoming launch of Anthony Bolton’s Fidelity China Special Situations Fund is bothering me - 27th February
 * slows down the Orient Express'' - As the euro falls, China’s price advantage will narrow – so I can’t see a good reason to put any money in - 13th February
 * – it’s not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’'' - A friend has just sent me a picture of his latest eBay purchase: a 100 trillion dollar bill from Zimbabwe. It cost him £2.48 - 6th February
 * these banks think we’re stupid?'' - Banks that charge high loan rates – and pay £1m bonues – must think their customers either don’t notice, or care - 30th January
 * prices should rise...but they won’t'' - One of the biggest surprises last year was the rise in UK house prices - 23rd January
 * going the way of Spain, Ireland and Japan'' - The “miracle economy” looks caught in a nasty trap of artificial and unsustainable growth driven by rapid credit growth and bubble psychology - 16th January
 * I’m hoping to be a bull, by the end of the year'' - I spent almost all of the noughties as a bear on equities, and the second half as a property bear – but if markets fall back, I’m hoping to change my ways - 9th January



Articles: 2009

 * case for gold continues...'' - Back in 2000, Bill Bonner, author of financial newsletter The Daily Reckoning, announced his trade of the decade. It was a simple one: sell dollars, buy gold. It turned out to be a good plan - 12th December
 * Better its currency than its shares'' - For the past year or so, I have shared this page with UK fund management guru Anthony Bolton. No more - 5th December
 * value for my pension cash'' - Buying a fund of value stocks should provide good upside if the rally continues, some capital protection if not, and reasonable income either way - 21st November
 * they don’t teach you at business school'' - Business school students – and investors - should throw out their textbooks and looking for real value in their investments instead - 14th November
 * should put their house in order'' - Much fuss this week about the Financial Service Authority’s (FSA) review of the mortgage market - 24th October
 * these cheap outperformers - while you still can'' - Investment trusts are cheap, they’re easy to buy and they easily outperform most other funds in rising markets. Buy them while you still can - 17th October
 * too early to sing a requiem for the dollar'' - The dollar looks just about dead. The US is running a massive trade deficit, has an almost unfeasibly large budget deficit and offers basically no yield at all to anyone dumb enough to hold its currency - 10th October
 * cash can unite you from the freaky market'' - There was a time when David Swansen was every investor’s hero. Under his stewardship the Yale University endowment fund outperformed pretty much every other fund in the world between 1985 and 2008 and became the subject of a million business school seminars in the process - 3rd October
 * adds spice to the dinner table conversation'' - I had dinner this week with friends from my Japanese stockbroking days. They have not gone back into the market. So the question round the table was: is it too late? - 26th September
 * me gold sovereigns over paper currency'' - If, like me, you believe a perfect storm is just getting going in the currency markets, it’s now a question of how – not if – to buy gold - 19th September
 * for gold'' - I’ve been a gold bug for nearly ten years. It’s been good: the dollar price of gold has nearly quadrupled since 2000. It has also been easy - 12th September
 * jam tomorrow for retailers'' - I made jam tarts the other day. many of my friends also bake. It is one of the classic symptoms of collapsing consumer confidence - 29th August
 * euro feels the strain'' - There was much excitement this week among the “worst is over” crowd as Germany and France reported GDP growth of 0.3 per cent - 22nd August
 * law of averaging'' - Market timing is easy in hindsight – but do you know anyone who got out of the market two years ago and went back in this March? - 15th August
 * early to declare V for victory'' - Just because I don’t believe in a V-shaped recovery doesn’t mean I disagree with Barry Norris of Argonaut on European equities - 1st August
 * is a dead loss'' - If you want a Michael-Jackson-style send off, don’t pre-pay for a funeral plan. Open a savings account, or buy shares in a funeral director, instead - 11th July
 * upside in these knock-down prices'' - The fact that commercial property prices in the US are still coming down so fast – along with the fact that residential prices remain under pressure – really matters - 20th June
 * ‘hornets nest’ would prevent us being stung'' - If no one is willing to make a flat-fee system work for fund management, the next best step would be to regulate for absolute transparency - 13th June
 * fees would deliver better fund managers'' - Why not charge flat rates for fund management? Everyone would understand what they were paying and there would be lower costs all round - 6th June
 * news dressed up as good'' - The rising pound is undoubtedly good news for those about to head off on holiday, but investors still need a safe haven - 30th May
 * bearish case for property'' - Houses are still too expensive. The average house price is now around £150,000 and the average salary around £25,000. That makes the price to income ratio a whopping six times - 23rd May
 * replaces V-shaped'' - For the last 80 years or so, there hasn’t been a recession and recovery cycle in the UK that hasn’t been V-shaped - 16th May
 * knack'' - One of the many press releases I received this week has got me a little worried. It says that a mere 25 per cent of financial advisers think that the recent massive rally in the stock market - the FTSE 100 is at a four-month high – represents the beginning of a new bull market - 9th May
 * is looking palatable'' - The key driver behind the collapse of the gîte and frite dreams of Britain’s middle classes is clearly the pound. Sterling has fallen10.2 per cent against the euro in the last 12 months - 2nd May
 * is looking palatable'' - The key driver behind the collapse of the gîte and frite dreams of Britain’s middle classes is clearly the pound. Sterling has fallen10.2 per cent against the euro in the last 12 months - 25th April
 * art for art’s sake'' - The great contemporary art boom was just another bubble. There was never a shortage of supply and demand was more speculative than rational – as perhaps all art investment always is - 11th April
 * Investing'' - I promised myself that, on my return from maternity leave, I would write no more columns about the property market. I assumed the argument was over. Not so - 4th April
 * will soon vouch for deflation'' - For the first time in many months, I ended up paying full price (and not a particularly cheap full price at that) in a UK high street shop - 28th March
 * bank on the bulls'' - Since March 6, the S&P 500 index is up 14 per cent and the FTSE 100 is up 9 per cent – leading to a growing belief that we may have seen the back of the bear - 21st March



Articles: 2008
FT columns begin from this date...
 * Focus on your target, aim and fire - Three years ago, Albert Edwards and James Montier, then of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, published a fabulous report called “Seven Sins of Fund Managers”. It explained how a variety of “behavioural weakness”, all “inherent in the average investment process”, caused average fund managers to make endless mistakes - 5th December 2008
 * Scraping the barrel for real returns - Back in July, I wrote that anyone with significant cash savings should take them to Northern Rock and pile them into the bank’s savings bonds – which, at the time, were offering to pay a fixed rate of interest at 7 per cent a year for five years. Why? - 14th November 2008
 * Property will stay in the doldrums - However hard I try, I still can’t see how the rate cut will make things much better for the housing market. For starters, it doesn’t help most of those looking for a new mortgage - 7th November 2008
 * Songs in a minor key - Anyone who thought the path of the commodities “supercycle” would be a smooth one would have been in for a shock this year. Just look at the performance of the miners - 25th October 2008
 * to invest it'' - back to basics guide to weathering the fiinancial crisis - 18th October 2008
 * Bubble, toil and rouble - They say a real bear market isn’t over until all the bubbles surrounding it are well and truly burst. On that measure, you might think we are nearly there. The oil bubble has popped – the price has now fallen below $83. So has the property bubble in most countries - 11th October 2008
 * All this optimism is getting me down - Desperate to find a reason to buy stocks? You aren’t alone. Everyone wants to be the one to pick the bottom of the market and to make the fortunes that tend to come with doing so - 4th October 2008
 * It’s time to review the house rules - Banking regulation is nothing to be rushed into. But that doesn’t mean Gordon Brown shouldn’t use this opportunity to introduce new rules. He should. It is just that he should forget the banks and focus on an easier target: the property investment market - 26th September 2008
 * Forget frantic fixes - it’s a capital offence - If you are one of the remaining stock market bulls looking for a sign of the bottom, you have been spoilt for choice this week. Unfortunately none of the events, extraordinary as each one is and as mad as each one would have seemed a year ago, tells us that the end of our crisis is in sight. It isn’t - 19th September 2008
 * There are no rewards for being brave - I get a lot of irritating press releases. This week’s worst came from one of the personal finance websites and announced that “women are noticeably more brave than men as house prices drop”. The irritating bit? The use of the word “brave” - 12th September 2008
 * Wading through the deluge - An EU directive has resulted in more than 200 UK companies reporting their financial results this week – overwhelming share investors with information, preventing analysts from finessing their forecasts, and making it a frantic week for me - by Oliver Ralph, 29th August 2008
 * Advertisers should switch on to TV - In the course of the average day, I spend several hours on the internet. Before I started writing this, I read and answered tens of e-mails. I looked up car rental prices for the bank holiday weekend. I even double-checked the cheapest rates for offset mortgages (I am absolutely not planning to buy a house – just looking) - 22nd August 2008
 * Make pessimism pay - Anyone who has put land up for sale in the past few years has had the satisfying experience of watching rich City-lifestyle buyers and real farmers elbow each other out of the way to get their hands on fields anywhere from Cornwall to Northumberland - 15th August 2008
 * The problem with cash - We go on holiday to a remote area of Shetland every year. Last year, the talk was of little but fast-rising house prices and the need to get on the ladder as quickly as possible. This year, it was all about how the housing market had frozen. Final proof, were it still needed, that the bubble/bust cycle knows no boundaries - 8th August 2008
 * The recession has just turned global - The most interesting bits of corporate news out this week came from Vodafone and De Beers. These are two very different companies – mobile phone businesses drive their growth at the bottom end of the market and diamond companies at the top end. But they both said similar things - 25th July 2008
 * It’s time to form an orderly queue at Northern Rock - I’ve never been one for tying my money up in long-term products of any kind. But I’m beginning to find myself looking rather longingly at some of the fixed-rate savings bonds on offer - 11th July 2008
 * Get yourself more money and sense I wandered through a City shopping centre earlier this week and marvelled. Here, in the midst of the credit crunch and on the edge of a nasty recession, were hordes of people shopping. Not in Woolworths or French Connection, but in Tiffany, Paul Smith, Hermès, Penhaligon’s and Gucci - 27th June 2008
 * Sorry, but this is going to hurt for a little longer - How do you cope with a credit crunch? That’s the question I was asked to address in a talk to a group of Dutch pension fund managers earlier this week - 20th June 2008
 * Try putting your trust in infrastructure - How often do you buy investment trusts these days? Probably not as often as you did a few years ago - 13th June 2008
 * The City is full of cloth ears - My sister is trying to sell a one- bedroom flat in Battersea. It is on the fourth floor of a Victorian mansion block. It is perfectly decorated and, being on the corner, has two terraces with fabulous views over the park. If one single property were to be immune from the housing collapse in the UK, this would be it. But it is not immune - 6th June 2008
 * In these uncertain times, it pays to hold on to gold - When gold was going for $300 an ounce and oil for $25 a barrel, it was easy to know where to put your money - 30th May 2008
 * Aim is looking cheap – but it’s still not worth it - Around this time last year, the nation’s investment experts all started to point out how cheap the big FTSE 100 stocks looked and to suggest that we all switched out of smaller companies and into blue chips - 23rd May 2008
 * A glimmer of a chance to save face in Japan - At the launch party for the new Spectator business magazine on Wednesday, a banker introduced himself to me. He’d been wanting to meet me for ages, he said. He was a great fan – he read all my columns and had done well over the years out of taking some of my advice. I glowed with pride. Then came the fall. But, he went on, he had also lost a small fortune as a result of buying into the Japanese market – again on my advice – in 2007 - 9th May 2008
 * Rescue rumours require a reality check - Deep in Cathar country in the south-west of France is a small village called Bugarach. To the uninformed eye, there isn’t much to distinguish it from the hundreds of other villages dotted around the Pyrenean foothills - 25th April 2008



Links:

 * London Stock Exchange: Merryn Somerset Webb - archive 2005/2008
 * MerrynSomersetWebb.co: articles by Merryn
 * Wikipedia bio