Why it makes sense to buy British

Buying global ‘mega-cap’ stocks gives you diversification and exposes you to international currencies. But you’d be better off buying the equivalent British stocks.

There's was encouraging little article in the Telegraph recently by Rachel Bridge on the slow return of some manufacturing to the UK. We learn that Robb Knight of Ecoegg has shifted all his production home, thanks to the fact that the difference in cost between here and China has "significantly narrowed". It is still more expensive in the UK, but worth the cost for the upside -"control over quality".

Trunki the travelling parents' saviour has also moved home, from the Far East to Plymouth. Huge numbers of other companies (around 15% of British firms says the Engineering Employers Federation) have moved part of their production back to the UK.

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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.