“This has been an incredibly unique cycle, both in terms of the economy and the market,” says Liz Ann Sonders, managing director and chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, on this week’s episode of Merryn Talks Money. “Maybe that’s the ultimate understatement.”

Sonders joins Merryn Somerset Webb to discuss what is and isn’t driving such turbulent markets—from Mother Nature “wreaking havoc” with inflation data to artificial intelligence’s promised productivity spur—and how investors can navigate the turmoil.

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In this week's roundup, Merryn speaks to Money Distilled newsletter author John Stepek about what it means if the government increases employers' national insurance contributions in the autumn budget. Plus, the latest price data came in well below target, but John explains why a lot of that was due to one volatile component.

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On this personal finance edition of Merryn Talks Money, our hosts discuss Lifetime ISAs and their usefulness in buying a home.

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Don’t meet with management, ignore narratives and avoid highly rated businesses—taken together that sounds like a recipe for fund failure. But for Sean Peche, founder and portfolio manager at Ranmore Fund Management Ltd., it’s how he’s consistently outperformed benchmark indices. His Ranmore Global Equity Fund outperformed the MSCI World Index in 2022 and 2023. He joins Merryn this week to talk about his strategy and his market outlook.

(Earlier podcast summary incorrectly identified the fund as a hedge fund. It is a long only fund.)

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In this week's roundup, Money Distilled newsletter author John Stepek is joined by Bloomberg Opinion columnist Marcus Ashworth. They discuss the UK bond market, particularly the fact that UK 10-year yields are back above those of the US, what signal that sends and what's behind UK borrowing costs going up.

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On this personal finance edition of Merryn Talks Money, hosts Merryn Somerset Webb and John Stepek discuss diversifying your UK pension.

They lay out scenarios in which your pension could be at risk, and the extent to which it would be protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. And it’s not just important for pensions: these should be considerations for anyone with investments in passive funds and individual savings accounts (ISAs), Webb and Stepek say. Also on this episode, they tackle monitoring your broker’s solvency and how to gauge whether you would have “political protection” should they go bust.

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Author and former Bank of England regulatory economist Dan Davies joins this week to discuss his new book, The Unaccountability Machine, which describes how the cost of large organisations deferring decision-making is a widening “accountability sink.”

As companies grow more complicated, the bigger the “sink” gets, he argues. “We’ve reached a crisis point.”

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In this week's roundup, Merryn and Money Distilled newsletter author John Stepek discuss the stock market response to China's unprecedented stimulus package, where we are now with the UK housing market, and who stands to benefit from the rally in prices and sales.

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