Gold: an abnormal holding for abnormal times

Currently, only 0.6% of global financial assets are in gold. In 1980 it was 3%. What that tells us, says Robin Angus, is that gold is not in a bubble. Instead it is an asset we should all be holding to protect our capital in these very odd times.

The great and good of Edinburgh always turn up at events if they know Robin Angus, the executive director of the Personal Assets Trust (PAT), is going to speak. And quite right too: he is exceptionally good. Last week, he spoke at an investment conference and while he made his audience semi-hysterical with giggles by announcing that he believes the next bull market in equities will start "the day the first tram runs in Edinburgh," he didn't have much good to say. Instead, he noted that the current economic situation is "diabolical" and that for the first time in generations, "our children could be worse off than us."

He mocked the world's finance ministers. They are, he said, totally out of their depth: "gabbling and sweating like unsuccessful applicants on The Apprentice." That said, he still said he expected a political solution of some kind if not a lasting one. "When politics and economics disagree, politics always wins but economics then takes its revenge."

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
Explore More
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.