Speaker 1: Dave. That's so threw me off. I've been saying correct.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure I've interviewed him with I mean
Speaker 1: I've been garage on Bouquet and there was like, see
Speaker 1: am I saying, I'm on YouTube? Nothing is straightforward about
Speaker 1: age Farage, Farage, Magel Farage. Are you sure leg I
Speaker 1: said that? Wow, that's what he told the labor person.
Speaker 1: He said it rhymes with garage. Yeah, but if you're American,
Speaker 1: it's garage garage. It's a minefield. I'm David Merritt and
Speaker 1: I'm Franci Laqua and this is in the City, Bloomberg's podcast,
Speaker 1: connecting you to the stories and the voices at the
Speaker 1: heart of the City of London. Dave, this week you
Speaker 1: were trying to make me pronounce Nigel Farage in a
Speaker 1: different way. Well, now in the correct way. Look, fran
Speaker 1: I know we don't disagree very often on this. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm afraid you're playing wrong. It is apparently it rhymes
Speaker 1: with garage, which has pronounced garage and not garage like
Speaker 1: I do, I pronounce it garage. That we're going to
Speaker 1: have to agree to disagree on this one. But Nigel
Speaker 1: has been on our minds, hasn't he because you know,
Speaker 1: he turns out he is producing We mustn't call it
Speaker 1: investment advice, but investment insights. To our very own Harry
Speaker 1: Wilson tracked the numbers, crunched the data in true Bloomberg
Speaker 1: fashion over the summer, and he's going to join us
Speaker 1: to talk through the rather unfavorable results. And you know,
Speaker 1: Brexit has been I'm afraid on my mind again this week, Francine.
Speaker 1: There was a poll that really caught my eye that
Speaker 1: showed that the public really are moving away from that
Speaker 1: decision to any sixteen. It seems like many more people
Speaker 1: now regret that vote. But what's really struck me is
Speaker 1: that the politicians are kind of behind the public on
Speaker 1: this one. No one is coming out and saying the
Speaker 1: Brexit has been a bad idea, at least no one
Speaker 1: from the main parties. So this week we revisit Brexit
Speaker 1: in our conversation with Jared Lyons. He's a senior fellow
Speaker 1: at Policy Exchange and he's been one of the most
Speaker 1: prominent pro Brexit voices right from the beginning. Right he
Speaker 1: has had a ring side set. I think it's fair
Speaker 1: to say, since you know that that sizemic voting into sixteen,
Speaker 1: both with Boris Johnson, but then of course over the
Speaker 1: summer with the dramatic implosion of the Trust administration and
Speaker 1: now of course pivoting to the new administration under Rishie Sunac.
Speaker 1: We have a pro dave a pro with us here
Speaker 1: in the podcast studio, A podcast pro right. I've never
Speaker 1: been described as before. There you go. This is the
Speaker 1: first time quote podcast pro where we're here with Jared Lyons,
Speaker 1: very well known economists. But you have a podcast you
Speaker 1: do with your daughter who's a comedian. So we have
Speaker 1: started a podcast called What They Have Is Economics. We've
Speaker 1: recorded three so far the third one. But it's comedy.
Speaker 1: Is it comedy or economic or both? It's basically listenable
Speaker 1: to you can listen that's accessible relat So it's economics
Speaker 1: and comedy with subjects. So yes, yeah, what the hell
Speaker 1: is economics? Right down in the UK? I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel like we've been you know, slapped around a bit
Speaker 1: in the last six months, just the last six months
Speaker 1: that it's been right, We've had a political crisis probably
Speaker 1: since two thousand and sixteen. But yes, the UK actually
Speaker 1: the last few months. It's a classic case of identifying
Speaker 1: the right problem, but not necessarily coming out with the
Speaker 1: right solution. So the problem has been since two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight a lack of economic growth, not a UK
Speaker 1: specific problem, was Western European problem. So at least people now,
Speaker 1: I think, recognize the problem, but there's clearly a long
Speaker 1: way to go to address it. And so yes, so
Speaker 1: the rights diagnosis structural slow growth. And you're an advocate
Speaker 1: over the summer for for the radical solution, right to
Speaker 1: to supercharge the economy a little bit, you know, to
Speaker 1: maybe to cut that. But it all went horribly wrong.
Speaker 1: You can describe why it went wrong and what your
Speaker 1: position is. Yeah, well I was Penny Mordans economic advisor
Speaker 1: and so shea unfortunately didn't make the final two um
Speaker 1: in terms of the Conservative leadership race. But my policy
Speaker 1: proposal was that we needed a three arrow approach, indeed,
Speaker 1: regardless of whose in power. One arrow is monetary and
Speaker 1: financial stability, reducing inflation and making the city competitive competitive
Speaker 1: not only for its own sake but to help the
Speaker 1: rest of the UK economy. Second arrow is using fiscal
Speaker 1: policy in a very proactive way, Canadian like, but at
Speaker 1: the same time reducing debt to GDP over time. And
Speaker 1: the third arrow was a whole supply side agenda, all
Speaker 1: the eyes as I called it, investment, innovation, infrastructure incentives,
Speaker 1: and if you get all those right then inequality is reduced.
Speaker 1: So basically three arrows comprehensive, avoiding a dash for growth,
Speaker 1: very much longer term supply side investment driven, but using
Speaker 1: fiscal policy and not as we've done since two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: rely on monetary policies the only shock absorber for the economy.
Speaker 1: So you're one of the Osso City grandees that was
Speaker 1: for a Brexit right from the very beginning. Have we
Speaker 1: gone anything out of Brexit? Yeah, well, the UK has
Speaker 1: very much positioned itself outside EU. Brexit is a political process.
Speaker 1: I think it's important to differentiate between an event and
Speaker 1: a process in the sense that the event happened. But
Speaker 1: to actually make Brexit work both economically and financially, is
Speaker 1: not just leaving the EU. It's what you do when
Speaker 1: you have left. And so in terms of looking at that, well,
Speaker 1: I would say partly because from two thousand six nineteen
Speaker 1: we had a political crisis and since then attention has
Speaker 1: not really focused on addressing the issue. And it comes
Speaker 1: back to David's original question as well about what we
Speaker 1: need to do to actually get growth up in the UK.
Speaker 1: In fact, both of these issues should come together. It's
Speaker 1: about what's the challenge, what do we need to do
Speaker 1: and what do we have at our disposal now host
Speaker 1: leaving the EU to actually make that work achievable. So
Speaker 1: do you do you still think it's a little bit
Speaker 1: too soon then to kind of pass judgment on brexitt.
Speaker 1: I mean there is a narrative now that well, some
Speaker 1: of the effects were you know, there was clouded by cope.
Speaker 1: We've had a pandemic. You know, it wasn't really clear
Speaker 1: to see. There is a bit more of a consensusive
Speaker 1: feels to me anyway amongst economist commentators, the ms of
Speaker 1: clearing the numbers are in Brexit's been bad for the
Speaker 1: British economy. Do you think it's too soon to say that, Well,
Speaker 1: Brexit should be a big positive for the UK economy
Speaker 1: and it's about using the ability to actually make the
Speaker 1: most of reposition in the UK in the changing and
Speaker 1: growing global economy. But it coming back to your question, David,
Speaker 1: if you actually look at the comparison between Save Britain
Speaker 1: and the three major economies on the continent who like
Speaker 1: the UK in the G seven so Germany, France and Italy.
Speaker 1: Since June two thousand sixteen, on the major economic indicators growth, unemployment,
Speaker 1: even inflation, the UK is very much in the middle
Speaker 1: of the pack. Can we take growth since two thousand sixteen,
Speaker 1: the UK has grown at a faster rate than Italy. Cumulatively,
Speaker 1: grown at a faster rate than Germany since two thousand
Speaker 1: and sixteen, not as fast as France. Unemployment are unemployment
Speaker 1: rate is half the year in Fresh Secretory, right, I
Speaker 1: mean it was in different If you look into the
Speaker 1: five years ago and the UK five years ago, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's difficult to compare because it's the was doing
Speaker 1: much worse and it ends and the UK at the
Speaker 1: time was doing so much better. So comparatively the UK
Speaker 1: is losing more, not really well since two thousand eight.
Speaker 1: Western Europe, but basically regardless which country you really look at,
Speaker 1: has been in pretty much the same boats, same position.
Speaker 1: When we look at the world of but say when
Speaker 1: we joined the EU back in nineteen seventy three, then
Speaker 1: we're there nine countries in it. At that time, the
Speaker 1: EU accounted for about six of the world when we
Speaker 1: left just after we left in two sixteen. Indeed, if
Speaker 1: you took two thousand nineteen, if you wanted the remaining
Speaker 1: twenty seven countries accounted for roughly world economy. If you
Speaker 1: take even the most level projections for the world economy
Speaker 1: five years time, EU then will be less than one
Speaker 1: tenth less than the size of India. So the issue
Speaker 1: is that clearly the UK needs to have a sensible
Speaker 1: relationship with the EU, but we need to reposition ourselves
Speaker 1: globally and at the same time make sure that we
Speaker 1: address the domestic challenges that are clearly very apparent. In
Speaker 1: coming back to David's point, when I advocated leaving the EU,
Speaker 1: my point was looked quite frankly, this cannot be the
Speaker 1: only economic issue of the day where all the arguments
Speaker 1: on one side, and as I actually I would say
Speaker 1: correctly pointing out at the time, there are arguments both
Speaker 1: for and against in terms of the whole basis wants
Speaker 1: to be decided politically to leave. The issue about leaving
Speaker 1: was that, as I said at the time, you can't
Speaker 1: leave something that you've been in for over forty years
Speaker 1: and expected to be easy easy to leave. M So
Speaker 1: I called it a Nike shrush in terms of its impact.
Speaker 1: The immediate impact in terms of the negative side, will
Speaker 1: be veryly apparent. But coming back to the early question
Speaker 1: from Francine, it's not just the political event, is actually
Speaker 1: what you two when you've left, and so the whole
Speaker 1: issue is how we reposition ourselves And that's very much.
Speaker 1: I mean, what happened that it was so difficult to
Speaker 1: you know, to find something else would kickstart this economy?
Speaker 1: Was it timing? Was it just issues that were badly
Speaker 1: thought out? Why it went wrong? Was I don't think
Speaker 1: they took on board the febrile states of the markets,
Speaker 1: how to handle the markets, and what they seemed to
Speaker 1: advocate at the end was interpreted as a dash for
Speaker 1: growth rather than what was needed, which was a sustained
Speaker 1: supply side driven sort of investment driven growth agenda. But like,
Speaker 1: why why were we not able under conservative governments all
Speaker 1: pro brexit to really capture what was needed? And you know,
Speaker 1: why has it been so difficult? And if you're an
Speaker 1: outside investor, how would you look into the UK right now? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm I don't sit inside the tent. So I've not
Speaker 1: been advising the governments since twenty sixteen. But the political
Speaker 1: crisis from twenty sixteen to the end of twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: really did not help. It didn't help anyone. Also, we've
Speaker 1: then had COVID since but we were now sell the
Speaker 1: election of Boris Johnson, I've until his landslide, when then
Speaker 1: when he got Brexit done? So did things improve at
Speaker 1: that point, because it's we've still been We've been in
Speaker 1: just a different political crisis ever since, haven't we. I
Speaker 1: mean it's kind of that which which are all still
Speaker 1: really can be dated back to Brexits now. I mean
Speaker 1: it's never really ended. The Brexit referendum was a political process,
Speaker 1: but it's a political process that actually allows you to
Speaker 1: then start to drive the economic and financial agenda. You
Speaker 1: can't leave something you've been in for forty odd years
Speaker 1: and expect it to be easy. The Transition Agreement or
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call the different aspects of it.
Speaker 1: We have the relationship with Northern Ireland, but with the
Speaker 1: new trade arrangement with the EU, clearly that could have
Speaker 1: gone in a different directions. So it's possible to construct
Speaker 1: different scenarios. But the point is it's about repositioning the
Speaker 1: UK and as I was mentioned earlier. We've done relatively
Speaker 1: well on the whole host of the measures, but I
Speaker 1: would actually say I didn't. I don't think the opportunity
Speaker 1: has being seized because I think the city is probably
Speaker 1: the most interesting area that we can focus on. From here,
Speaker 1: How would you kick start the city of London today?
Speaker 1: For a financial center to be competitive, it really needs
Speaker 1: three key characteristics, or three key factors all coming together.
Speaker 1: One is it's inherent characteristics, second is the regulatory environment,
Speaker 1: and the third it needs to be the place that
Speaker 1: customers want to do business. And that's a function of
Speaker 1: many things, including the depth and breadth of markets. So
Speaker 1: ensure that you're inherent characteristics are secure control of the
Speaker 1: controllables in some respects. Second, ensure that your regulatory agenda
Speaker 1: fits what you're trying to do. And third, it's about
Speaker 1: bringing that together alongside the need for customers to see
Speaker 1: you as an attractive place to do business in the
Speaker 1: city is still pretty well placed there. Z Gen serve
Speaker 1: they shows with the second most competitive globally, but we
Speaker 1: shouldn't underestimate the continued challenge from New York and fromation economies.
Speaker 1: But we've seen other data since two thousand and sixty
Speaker 1: or two thousand nineteen, which very much are in line
Speaker 1: with what one would have expected in terms of jobs,
Speaker 1: in terms of trading and in terms of other activity.
Speaker 1: Some firms, depending on their business model, have had to adjust,
Speaker 1: but that's moving some things from London to Dublin, London
Speaker 1: to Luxembourg or wherever. That's also related in the jobs.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, the UK has remained pretty
Speaker 1: competitive in the number of areas, so it's very much
Speaker 1: up for grabs what we do from here. The important
Speaker 1: thing is not to be complacent. I am interested by
Speaker 1: what you say about this serving of the rest of
Speaker 1: the country. We don't hear that very much when it
Speaker 1: comes to discussion about the city as a financial powerhouse,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's all about the you know, how
Speaker 1: much money can be generated here for the banks, not
Speaker 1: how is the city the financing engine for businesses across
Speaker 1: the country. That's a different sort of agenda. But how
Speaker 1: can the city he really served that function? What needs
Speaker 1: to change? Okay, there's a whole host of different aspects here,
Speaker 1: but the domestic agenda can be seen coming back to
Speaker 1: early point I mentioned about trying to address or filling
Speaker 1: those gaps in terms of patient capital and the funding
Speaker 1: gap facing small firms is that a bank is I
Speaker 1: mean a bank fills in usually you know, funding too
Speaker 1: small and medium sized enterprise. It does it have to
Speaker 1: be the whole city of London. Yeah, I thought I
Speaker 1: was trying to avoid mentioning the McMillan gap today because
Speaker 1: I mentioned it too much recently. Then this podcast more
Speaker 1: fun than yours because the McMillan gap was first in
Speaker 1: identified in one which was that banks were not servicing
Speaker 1: the needs of small firms. But coming back to your question, Frantic,
Speaker 1: we've moved on from banks, but banks player passing that.
Speaker 1: If you actually look at the bars or capital requirements,
Speaker 1: it's quite remarkable how banks, and it's true not just
Speaker 1: in Britain, offices international are incentivized to do to say
Speaker 1: really to buy government debt, zerio capital or to lend
Speaker 1: to the property sector, and they do that, particularly in
Speaker 1: the UK where property prices unfortunately have moved so high
Speaker 1: relative to people's earnings and incomes. But the real issue
Speaker 1: is not just with banks, it's with the whole financial
Speaker 1: sector about how it provides finance to small firms post
Speaker 1: Brexit so to speak. When Richie soon it was chancellor.
Speaker 1: He very much was aligned with the idea of regional
Speaker 1: centers become attractive to onshore, back office and other services,
Speaker 1: and City UK, where I used to be on the
Speaker 1: board many years ago, has been very big on pushing
Speaker 1: the fact that the city, come back to your point, David,
Speaker 1: is a whole of UK success story, and indeed Center
Speaker 1: for Policy Studies has written about this as well, that
Speaker 1: we often overlook the fact that two thirds of jobs
Speaker 1: in the financial center sector are outside of London. London
Speaker 1: is really at the forefront internationally, but there are many
Speaker 1: different aspects and also the financial inclusion as But I
Speaker 1: remember presenting the paper to the Commonwealth Finance and this
Speaker 1: conference on this back in the day about financial inclusion,
Speaker 1: and in that respect then the focus was very much
Speaker 1: on so called emerging economies. But the fact of the
Speaker 1: matter is that banking the unbanked is a bigger shoot
Speaker 1: here in the UK, and financial exclusion is very much
Speaker 1: related to poverty, inequality and social exclusion. So there are
Speaker 1: many different facets that we can see the city playing
Speaker 1: a bigger role domestically in and indeed this should be
Speaker 1: not a political issue, it should be central to making
Speaker 1: the city sort of serve the needs domestically as well
Speaker 1: as at the same time remaining at the forefront competitively internationally.
Speaker 1: Just thinking about that competitive position now internationally again, I mean,
Speaker 1: we've been talking a lot, and we've had guests in
Speaker 1: this podcast in recent weeks looking at the growth in Paris,
Speaker 1: say of the stock markets overtaken London in terms of
Speaker 1: market capitalization, and there is this drip drip of jobs
Speaker 1: that are cropping up in other battles around you, and
Speaker 1: a lot of business going to New York as well.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned London is still coming out pretty well
Speaker 1: in those rankings. How optimistic are you that London can
Speaker 1: maintain its position in the coming years. The city, generally,
Speaker 1: if we take it away from the politics, is about
Speaker 1: what you do, not just sort of resting on your laurels,
Speaker 1: and so it's about how you can play to those
Speaker 1: three key areas that you need to play to for
Speaker 1: an international competitive financial center. One, you're inherent characteristics. People
Speaker 1: usually quote things like the rule of law, which is
Speaker 1: vital important English language, but obviously a I might challenge her.
Speaker 1: But data centers and the ecosystem is really important here,
Speaker 1: and you need to play to your strengths on those
Speaker 1: so you do need to take action to make sure
Speaker 1: your inherent characteristics are really supportive. Second, the regulatory agenda
Speaker 1: is really very important here. The UK can be at
Speaker 1: the forefront of subtech and red tech the whole that's
Speaker 1: very much play right now, right, this is all to
Speaker 1: play for. Yeah. But the interesting aspect here is that
Speaker 1: often the debate in the media can talk about regulation
Speaker 1: for regulations sake. But regulation, yeah, Well, in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, when we have the global financial crisis, one
Speaker 1: way to think about it is a pendulum which was
Speaker 1: at one extreme self regulation and that had all the
Speaker 1: sorts of problems that we saw. Unfortunately, the pendulum in
Speaker 1: many respects has swung straight very much to the other extreme.
Speaker 1: Unlike a pendulum, it needs to settle in the middle
Speaker 1: because while you need a stable and predictable prudential regulatory environment,
Speaker 1: regulation is stepping stone to economic growth, cities, competitiveness, and
Speaker 1: also financial stabilit ring fencing rules brought in after the
Speaker 1: financial crime while it took a while to event right
Speaker 1: and now being peddled back, is that the pendulum swinging back.
Speaker 1: In terms of the whole bank area, there are a
Speaker 1: whole host of issues, but banks um about them being
Speaker 1: internationally competitive. The ring fencing is one aspect. It's also
Speaker 1: interest paid on their reserves. At the Bank of England.
Speaker 1: A lot of the debate there is about financial stability.
Speaker 1: Maybe we need to move to a tiered system on
Speaker 1: that because the taxpayer through the treasury and deemnifies the
Speaker 1: asset purchase facility. But coming back to your point is
Speaker 1: about um that pendulum moving back to the middle. So
Speaker 1: you don't want to penalize the banks, but you don't
Speaker 1: want to go back to where we were pre two
Speaker 1: thousand or and theate, where financial instability was very much
Speaker 1: building up beneath the surface. So it is about adjusting things.
Speaker 1: So regulation does need to reflect that. Do you think
Speaker 1: therefore the bank needs a major overhaul you talk about
Speaker 1: its processes and how it's analyzing the markets and how
Speaker 1: it's forecasting. Do you think there needs to be a
Speaker 1: shake up of the Bank of England. Well, yeah, absolutely
Speaker 1: that this shouldn't be seen as a challenge to its
Speaker 1: integrity or it's independence. This should be seen as part
Speaker 1: of a necessary process. What one needs, coming back to
Speaker 1: your question, is not just an attack on the Bank
Speaker 1: of England, as you called it. It's a fact to
Speaker 1: make sure that our institutions are fit for purpose. Jared,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Jared Lyons neverlags a gray self
Speaker 1: maybe the best and so you know, frankly, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: mind having him on my team when I was a manager,
Speaker 1: as long as he believes that everything I said. But
Speaker 1: then he would have his own ideas with me. That
Speaker 1: was the voice of Tim Steer. He once managed hundreds
Speaker 1: of millions of pounds for clients of Artimist Investment Management,
Speaker 1: and whose senior reporter Harry Wilson approached for help in
Speaker 1: deciphering how successful these investment tips by Noigel Farage performed.
Speaker 1: So Harry set out the summer to try to understand
Speaker 1: whether the investment insights of a newsletter that Ferrage promotes
Speaker 1: could pay off. And the answer, it seems not so
Speaker 1: much that you're getting it Franston, and you're getting it right, Okay.
Speaker 1: So we caught up with Harry for more of his
Speaker 1: investment journey and what he learned when he asked the question,
Speaker 1: can Nigel make you rich? So Harry, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: People cannot get enough of the story. Take us back
Speaker 1: to when it all began. It began over the summer
Speaker 1: when we started having a conversation about a few people
Speaker 1: on the desk have been noticing these these emails that
Speaker 1: Nigel Ferrage had been sending out. I'm Tim Culture, I'm
Speaker 1: the head of digital for Bloomers Operations in London. I
Speaker 1: saw an advertisement for Fortune and Freedom and it really
Speaker 1: made me wonder if Nigel Farage was indeed making specific
Speaker 1: investment insights that that that we could actually track. What
Speaker 1: happened was about November December, he Nigel Ferrags joined up
Speaker 1: with this company called south Bank Research in London and
Speaker 1: there he launched a podcast and newsletter called Freedom and Fortune.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to Fortunate in Freedom with Nigel Frage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea is that Fortunate and Freedom will be a
Speaker 1: daily email and in Freedom and Fortune, Nigel Frage essentially
Speaker 1: gives you his views on the world, geopolitics, economics, everything
Speaker 1: with his sort of indomitable Nigel Ferrage twist twip because
Speaker 1: because they go together, right, freedom and Fortune right there exactly.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's a pretty obvious allusion to to Brexit.
Speaker 1: It there was all sorts of things. You know, it's
Speaker 1: about taking back control of your money. You know, a
Speaker 1: phrase that many of us in Britain have heard many
Speaker 1: times before in a different context, but this time it
Speaker 1: was freedom and fortune to go and find your fortune
Speaker 1: in the financial markets. So what we first started thinking
Speaker 1: about was, well, is there any kind of way of
Speaker 1: tracking his advice here? And when you go onto the
Speaker 1: free site the freedom and Fortune thing, there are a
Speaker 1: couple of stock recommendations, but there wasn't really much to
Speaker 1: get our teeth into, which is when I started having
Speaker 1: a closer look at it. And actually it turned out
Speaker 1: there was a subscriber newsletter called UK Independent Wealth which
Speaker 1: was created by Nigel Farage and which has a stock
Speaker 1: portfolio which was put together by a former UBS banker
Speaker 1: based in Buenos Aires called rob My Strand. And that's
Speaker 1: what we started tracking. So, um, we we're looking at
Speaker 1: creating this portfolio that we're going to try to match
Speaker 1: the performance of this uh suggested portfolio from South Bank. Yes, so,
Speaker 1: I mean I think the idea here is that we
Speaker 1: just want to try so a lot of people won't
Speaker 1: even know that actually Nigel Forrage, you know, provides investment advice,
Speaker 1: and so you built a portfolio, imaginary portfolio of a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand pounds. How did it do? It didn't do
Speaker 1: terribly well, So we we we took a sort of
Speaker 1: a few runs at how to track this this portfolio.
Speaker 1: First thing to say, by the way, Nigel Farrage vehemently
Speaker 1: denies that he provides advice. That's one thing we got
Speaker 1: when we spoke to him, very important legal point that right,
Speaker 1: very important legal point that he does not legally provide advice.
Speaker 1: These are he promotes this this eerrvis but gave back
Speaker 1: to the performance. So we looked at a few ways
Speaker 1: to track it. Now. I went and spoke to a
Speaker 1: former fund manager, Tim Steer, who used to manage hundreds
Speaker 1: of millions of pounds at Asthmas Investment Management, and he
Speaker 1: gave us some advice on how to do this um
Speaker 1: and that runs for whatever it runs for until the
Speaker 1: second one comes in. The second one comes in, your liquidates,
Speaker 1: you look at it protorfolio. So you've now got a
Speaker 1: hundred ten thousands you put So we looked at essentially
Speaker 1: rebalancing portfolio. So what you do is you look at
Speaker 1: the stock advice, you take the recommendations as they come,
Speaker 1: and then you just rebalance the portfolio each time a
Speaker 1: new recommendation is made, and that Tim told us was
Speaker 1: the best way of tracking a performance. So putting all
Speaker 1: this into the Bloombow terminal, we came up with the
Speaker 1: results and it came out basically that you have about
Speaker 1: a You lost about eight percent or eight thousand pounds
Speaker 1: of your starting a hundred thousand overlast roughly to two years,
Speaker 1: and that compares pretty poorly with just putting your money
Speaker 1: into an index tracker, where you'd have got something like
Speaker 1: a well, you've gained about eighteen so a difference in
Speaker 1: performance of roughly about twenty five th pounds. I mean,
Speaker 1: I love this, Harry. It's so bloomberg that we've dived
Speaker 1: into the data here and tracked it. I mean, do
Speaker 1: you think it's too much to say we can draw
Speaker 1: some parallels here to the performance of Britain, who took
Speaker 1: Farage's advice. But by the way, are very awn Allegra
Speaker 1: Stratton told me it rhymes with Garage, so it's Farage
Speaker 1: we're pronouncing wrong this year. So Mr Farage recommended Britain
Speaker 1: revu and the g d P hasn't picked up in
Speaker 1: the same way post pandemic has its compared to the
Speaker 1: rest of the world, so we've sort of underperformed the
Speaker 1: global benchmarks. Do you think there's some sort of synergy
Speaker 1: here with his investment provide? I think probably the one
Speaker 1: thing you might take out of this, and again this
Speaker 1: is something that came through to me from talking to
Speaker 1: Tim Steer. There are are fun matachment expert was his
Speaker 1: point on this. This portfolio is the problem is that
Speaker 1: you don't have any world equities in it, so you've
Speaker 1: you've got a pure selection pretty much apart from one
Speaker 1: E t F for Brazilian E t F. You've essentially
Speaker 1: got a concentrated position in the UK. But the key
Speaker 1: thing that's wrong with the portfolio in my view, is
Speaker 1: that it's recommending you buy UK assets and there's been
Speaker 1: a big move in the last ten years, sadly for
Speaker 1: investors generally to move away from UK assets in their
Speaker 1: portfolios and their pension funds to earning global assets in
Speaker 1: their portfolios, and the UK markets just haven't done particularly
Speaker 1: well in recent years for a variety of reasons, Brexit
Speaker 1: being one of them, but there there are others, and
Speaker 1: that means that you haven't had, for instance, the performance
Speaker 1: in US text docs, which is actually I should say
Speaker 1: one area where they were particularly gloomy on the podcasts.
Speaker 1: Are listening to the Nigel Faratsh podcast. But I think
Speaker 1: the big shark downward movements reflect one thing we've been
Speaker 1: saying since we launch for Stood and Freedom. Don't touch
Speaker 1: the tech sector, right, don't go near it. It's hugely overvalued.
Speaker 1: Each year that goes by it gets more and more bubbly. Yes,
Speaker 1: of course there are some fantastic tech companies, so Nigel
Speaker 1: doesn't like. He doesn't like foreign stocks either. Well, he
Speaker 1: certainly doesn't like US tech stops. He was very down
Speaker 1: on those in the many, many podcasts and newsletters society
Speaker 1: that I listened to and read. The nasadac's grossly overvalued.
Speaker 1: And I do see these setbacks are something of a
Speaker 1: validation for that, because when things are training at multiples
Speaker 1: that are always beyond comprehension. You know, he's certainly not
Speaker 1: a someone who's particularly totally against tech. I mean, he
Speaker 1: talks quite a lot about blockchain and bitcoins and cryptocurrencies,
Speaker 1: and there's there's an awful loss of When you sign
Speaker 1: up to this service, you don't just get your freedom
Speaker 1: of fortune, you start getting all sorts of other suggestions
Speaker 1: about things you might invest in. And crypto is a
Speaker 1: very heavily plugged market, so you weren't bank very for
Speaker 1: around two yes, so so you know that we weren't
Speaker 1: just looking at this. I guess as just how the
Speaker 1: portfolio did. There's all sorts of kind of weird and
Speaker 1: wonderful things you start getting put in front of you
Speaker 1: when you when you sign up to this thing. So
Speaker 1: one of the areas it seems so so nuts. Now
Speaker 1: basically they were suggesting a thing called a cash surge calculator,
Speaker 1: and we were told that this is such a secret
Speaker 1: investment that the guy who designed it has put it
Speaker 1: onto a USB stick and put it in a vault
Speaker 1: buried underneath the Nevada Desert. Such as the secrecy and
Speaker 1: and the value of this this algorithm and what it
Speaker 1: turned out was essentially it's basically every couple of weeks
Speaker 1: Americans put investments there for a one kpans and the
Speaker 1: idea is you since you invest in those cash windows,
Speaker 1: so when Americans invest in therefore one cage, you put
Speaker 1: your money into the stock market and hey, presto, you'll
Speaker 1: get sort of lifted by this. This brief inflow of
Speaker 1: funds and that will produce these amazing returns for you.
Speaker 1: And it's presented as this is, you know, the most
Speaker 1: amazing thing ever. No one's ever thought of this. Well, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: when when we spent went and found some academics who
Speaker 1: tracked this, they the idea to them that this was
Speaker 1: something so secret that had to be buried on the
Speaker 1: Nevada desert was frankly ridiculous. I mean, did we have
Speaker 1: to dispatch a reporter to Nevada to try and find
Speaker 1: this thing? Not? Not as yet. If you're offering me
Speaker 1: a flight to Nevada, Harry is taking that fire. I'll
Speaker 1: take that fly. I mean, have we spoken to Mr
Speaker 1: Farade or should we call him Nigel? Did you manage
Speaker 1: get ahold of him to defend his position? So, you know,
Speaker 1: as as always, we we went out for comment. We
Speaker 1: tried various ways and eventually got him on the telephone.
Speaker 1: It was a fairly brief conversation. I think roughly about
Speaker 1: a minute. Um. I think the question that seemed to
Speaker 1: finish it off was when I when I asked if
Speaker 1: he was actually following his own advice. At that point
Speaker 1: the connection broke for whatever reason. And yes, that was
Speaker 1: That's all I managed to get. But as I said,
Speaker 1: the one thing he was very insistent on is that
Speaker 1: he does not provide advice. Yeah, I say garage. The
Speaker 1: problem now how it pronounced his name, Davie, I say garage, garage,
Speaker 1: regional British accent. Harry. Thank you so much, great story,
Speaker 1: no worries, Thank you, Thanks for listening to this week's
Speaker 1: in the City. We will be back next week, but
Speaker 1: in the meantime, if you like our show, please head
Speaker 1: on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: podcasts and rate, review and subscribe. This episode was hosted
Speaker 1: by me David Merritt and me Franci Laqua. It was
Speaker 1: produced by Summersadi, editing and sound designed by Blake Maples,
Speaker 1: and special thanks to Gerard Lyons, Harry Wilson and altogether
Speaker 1: Now Nigel Farage. Three