The biggest financial stories of 2019

This is Money Podcast

This is Money

Business News, Business, Investing, News

4.1 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2019

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Does Woodford trump Brexit and the election, were you more concerned about the wealth gap, or do all those pale into insignificance next to the challenges of climate change?

On this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert, Georgie Frost and Tanya Jefferies discuss the money stories that shaped the final year of a tumultuous decade.

Fallen star fund manager Neil Woodford dominated the financial headlines after his fund was frozen at the start of June, with investors still waiting to find out how much they will get back as it is wound down.

That saga was enough to push Brexit and politics out of the main headlines for a while, but they loomed large over the whole year.

January triggered a period of fretting over no deal, March saw the Brexit deadline come and pass, summer saw Theresa May out the door of Number 10 Downing Street and Boris Johnson in, only for the new Prime Minister to miss his own Brexit deadline and gamble on an election that he won handsomely.

Where does that take us next – and will the set of negotiations we are about to enter into with the EU, after Brexit finally happens on 31 January 2020, prove even tougher.

The election also brought campaigning on wealth and inequality – and this topic has also never been far from the agenda in 2019, whether it’s the gap between rich and poor or young and old.

Should we worry more about it? What is triggering the problem? How much do high house prices have to do with it?

The team discuss that and the defining global issue of the year: climate change. How will countries stepping up their attempts to reduce carbon emissions shape the next decade – and does it present an investment opportunity?

We hope you enjoy this final podcast of 2019, thanks for listening, and have a very merry Christmas. We’ll be back in the next decade.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to This is Money. I'm Georgie Frost and alongside me and editor Simon Lambert.
0:04.7	Today is Pensions and Investing Editor Tanya Jeffreys. And it is Christmas time and that can only mean one thing.
0:13.1	No, we're not actually going to do a taste test today, quite simply loyal listeners.
0:17.5	Simon and the team got rather fed up with my turkey ham hybrid offerings, though I thought
0:22.5	that was quite creative, and my neighbours with the pungent stench of boiling Brussels sprouts.
0:27.7	No, instead we are going to be looking back on what's been quite some year in the world of finance
0:33.8	and politics, because let's be honest, the two are rather inextricably linked.
0:42.3	Now, last year a star fell. We all got richer, apparently. We all went a little greener.
0:48.5	And Brexit didn't happen again. We'll discuss that and plenty more. But don't forget you this update with all the latest breaking money news, just go to this ismoney.org or download
0:53.4	the app. But first, how many stock pickers
0:56.2	could you name? Now, obviously, you are This Is Money readers, so probably more than most. But let's be
1:01.8	honest, a celebrity in the world of investing is pretty rare. But Neil Woodford was as close as we have in
1:07.4	this country to Warren Buffett. And yet this was the year that fame turned to notoriety
1:12.8	after 25 years of market beating returns with Investco perpetual. Neil Woodford decided to go alone
1:18.4	five years ago. And to be honest, he stormed it at the start. He made investors' returns of 18%. But then,
1:25.0	well, it all started to go rather downhill and rather dramatically.
1:30.7	So what went wrong? What now for Neil Woodford and his investors? And has anything been
1:35.3	learned or did it need to be learned in the wider industry? So, Simon, just if you would,
1:41.5	welcome. Happy Christmas, by the way. Expand on my potted, rather potted history there.
1:47.9	I think that the problem was it all went a bit to Mr. Woodford's head.
1:52.1	Do you think?
1:52.7	I think it all went to Neil Woodford's head and the head of his business partner, Craig Newman,
	...

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