Europe: a contrarian investor's dream

Many people fear Europe is heading for a decade of Japan-style stagnation. But it's not, says Merryn Somerset Webb. And for the contrarian investor, there may be no better bet.

According to many, the West and Europe in particular is well on its way to becoming the new Japan. We've got property crashes; we've got regular stock market crashes; we've got near-zero interest rates; we've got zombie banks institutions kept alive by a rotten mixture of state subsidy and consensual denial; we've got poor demographics; we've got out-of-control sovereign debt; and we've got useless politicians. But, while there is no denying these unpleasant similarities, there are major differences too.

Most obvious of these is the fact that nowhere in the West has deflation.

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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.