What’s in my crystal ball

Everybody's gloomy on 2012's financial prospects. But are they right? Merryn Somerset Webb makes her predictions for the year ahead.

There is a clear consensus opinion in the market this year. Pretty much everyone thinks inflation will collapse to near zero; that global stockmarkets will struggle; and that any compensating growth will come from China.

We can rarely see a consensus without coming over all contrarian. I feel more positive about developed equity markets this year than I have for a while. That isn't saying much, but it does at least mark something of a change.James Ferguson makes the case for Europe well and I tend to agree with him (for once). I remain positive on Japan on valuation grounds. We are also warming to the US, particularly now that US retail investors appear to have given up on it (they pulled a total of $135bn out of the market last year).

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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.