The companies most vulnerable to the rising tide of populism

It’s tempting to ignore the populism sweeping the West. But it could seriously damage your investments. John Stepek explains why, and how to adjust your strategy to cope.

Populism is the buzz word of the day. As such, it's tempting to ignore it.

But investors need to wrap their heads around it. They've spent the last couple of decades being told that politics doesn't matter. And in the era of convergence and globalisation and omnipotent central banks, it didn't for a while.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.