Why investing is not for the brave

Courage can be an admirable trait. But buying property, bank stocks or junior miners isn't brave, says Merryn Somerset Webb. The word to describe those actions is 'stupid'.

I get a lot of irritating press releases. This week's worst came from one of the personal finance websites and announced that "women are noticeably more brave than men as house prices drop". Apparently, 81% of women questioned said that they would "consider buying a house in the current environment" whereas a mere 30% of men would do the same. The irritating bit? The use of the word "brave".

This is an environment in which the prices of houses sold at auction the only place where prices are really clear have fallen 23% in the last year; one in which the number of new mortgage approvals constantly hits new lows; in which mortgage offers to those without a 20% deposit and a proper income have all but dried up; in which real incomes are falling and unemployment is rising; and one in which there is a consensus (among all but those running property investment companies) that prices have a good 10-15% still to fall.

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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.