The charts that matter: the US economy’s big surprise

US economic growth absolutely hammered expectations for the first quarter. John Stepek looks at what that means to the charts that matter the most to the global economy.

Welcome back. We have two new podcasts for you this week Merryn and I discuss inflationary psychology, bitcoin, exciting advances in agricultural technology, and why a student jubilee would be a good thing (although also inflationary) listen to it now. And in the second, Merryn talks to India expert David Cornell about the sub-continent's prospects and the opportunities for investors. Listen here.

And if you are wondering whether you should buy a copy of my book on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor (not that I'm biased or anything, but you really should get it here), you can hear me talking about it with financial planner Martin Bamford on his podcast here.

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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.