How to invest for an inflationary end game

It’s becoming ever harder for British investors to protect themselves from inflation. Yet central bankers are edging closer to restarting the printing presses. Merryn Somerset Webb looks at ways to hedge your inflation risk – including a surprising property play.

The indefinite suspension of National Savings & Investments (NS&I) Index-Linked saving certificates earlier this week has irritated savers. And for very good reason. Without them there is absolutely no way to earn a real return on cash without taking a certain amount of risk.

But the disappearance of the most attractive product on the market is not the only worrying thing about the suspension. It isn't entirely clear why NS&I decided to withdraw the products.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.