Diversify and hold gold

The future is looking very uncertain, says Merryn Somerset Webb. Make sure you diversify your portfolio.

Here at MoneyWeek we are often criticised for worrying too much. This week I wonder if our mistake in 2014 has been not to worry enough. Our cover story looks at the impact of the extraordinarily fast collapse of the oil price on the global economy and markets.

There's a view, discussed by John Stepek, that cheap oil is mostly good because it cuts costs for consumers. We have sympathy with that view. But it isn't that simple. Why? Because the speed of this collapse makes the whole world more unstable.

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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.