Latest / Merryn Talks Money / Gold’s Shine, Small Cap Hopes and What to Watch in 2026
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
- 0:17Speaker 2: Welcome to the Merrin Dogs Money Market Wrap, where we
- 0:19Speaker 2: talk about the biggest moves in the markets this week
- 0:21Speaker 2: and what is driving them. I'm Marrin Zumset, web Editor
- 0:24Speaker 2: at Large for Bloomberg UK Wealth.
- 0:27Speaker 3: And I'm joined Stavie, senior reporter at Bloomberg and the
- 0:29Speaker 3: author of the Money's Stilled newsletter.
- 0:32Speaker 4: Gallow John. Now, John, this is our last chat of
- 0:35Speaker 4: the year.
- 0:36Speaker 2: Well, it's our last public chat of the It should
- 0:38Speaker 2: we say, well, it says hello, We're going to talk
- 0:42Speaker 2: about the biggest moves in the market this week. As
- 0:44Speaker 2: you you know, we need to look at the biggest
- 0:45Speaker 2: moves in the market this year.
- 0:48Speaker 3: Yes, yes, because it's been kind of.
- 0:50Speaker 2: An interesting year, so much going on, mostly negative, yet
- 0:55Speaker 2: global markets are up nearly twenty percent across the board
- 0:59Speaker 2: to appolutely fascinating. I'm obviously it's a bad ai. It's
- 1:02Speaker 2: about falling interest rates, it's about maybe a bit more
- 1:04Speaker 2: growth than expected. But nonetheless, when you look at everything
- 1:07Speaker 2: and you look at how we started.
- 1:08Speaker 4: The year, this is kind of extraordinary.
- 1:11Speaker 2: And then you look at the fitze in there, which
- 1:13Speaker 2: one hundred round twenty percent, you look at the all
- 1:17Speaker 2: share is still up.
- 1:17Speaker 4: Seventeen percent or so.
- 1:19Speaker 2: And then you look at our favorite gold, well, then
- 1:21Speaker 2: gold sixty three percent under the bike and I know,
- 1:25Speaker 2: nice pattern the bag.
- 1:25Speaker 4: We'll get to silver run a minute.
- 1:27Speaker 2: And then you've got the gold Miners index up over
- 1:30Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty percent. And then of course there
- 1:32Speaker 2: is poor Bitcoin.
- 1:34Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 1:35Speaker 3: Actually yes, I'd bet I had forgotten bitcoin. Of all
- 1:39Speaker 3: the risky stuff that went.
- 1:41Speaker 2: Up, everything went up except for Bitcoin, which actually went
- 1:46Speaker 2: down about eight percent. And then there is the Bitcoin
- 1:50Speaker 2: Treasury's Index. You know, so if you think of gold
- 1:53Speaker 2: and then leveraged gold being gold miners, and then you've
- 1:56Speaker 2: got bitcoin, and you think of the equivalents of gold
- 1:57Speaker 2: miners being the Treasury index. These companies, so we've talked
- 2:00Speaker 2: about before, listed companies that just hold bitcoin and inexplicably,
- 2:04Speaker 2: until relatively recently, quite a few of them traded at
- 2:07Speaker 2: a premium to the bitcoin.
- 2:08Speaker 4: Which they hold. Completely insane.
- 2:09Speaker 2: We'll never understand this stuff, but there it is, the
- 2:12Speaker 2: Bitcoin Treasury Index again, down six seven percent so far
- 2:16Speaker 2: this year. So it's been really interesting. You look at
- 2:19Speaker 2: bitcoin now and you think, well, what is it correlated to? No?
- 2:22Speaker 3: Yeah, because there is nothing else that you can look at.
- 2:25Speaker 3: I mean, the one thing that whenever people were seeing,
- 2:28Speaker 3: well it's not digital gold, but it is correlated to
- 2:31Speaker 3: the knives deck, you know. Even I mean the nise
- 2:34Speaker 3: Dick's done fain this year hasn't done as well as
- 2:36Speaker 3: it normally have.
- 2:38Speaker 2: Eighteen point seven two percent so far we're on there.
- 2:41Speaker 2: We're talking on the eighteenth of December. By the ways,
- 2:43Speaker 2: it is still underperforming the fifty one hundred, but not
- 2:47Speaker 2: quitely as badly as I initially suggested.
- 2:49Speaker 3: And these local Curtncy figures, because yeah, if you translated
- 2:53Speaker 3: any GBP so or what are you a British person
- 2:56Speaker 3: would actually have got then I'm pretty sure the footsis
- 2:58Speaker 3: beaten the Niceta Bay even more than that. But I mean,
- 3:02Speaker 3: we shouldn't throw it too much because it hasn't happened
- 3:04Speaker 3: for a while. But I think it's interesting that there's
- 3:07Speaker 3: been that move. Are we from the US or the
- 3:10Speaker 3: US exceptionalism story? I think it is fairly see when
- 3:13Speaker 3: you look at the markets did end this year. I
- 3:16Speaker 3: mean whether that will continue next year is another matter.
- 3:19Speaker 2: But no, I mean, and there is no getting away
- 3:21Speaker 2: from the fact that absolutely the best place to invest
- 3:24Speaker 2: anywhere until relatively recently, until what two years ago, was
- 3:28Speaker 2: definitely anything to do with the US dot market. So,
- 3:31Speaker 2: you know, we we can be precly jolly about what's
- 3:34Speaker 2: going on in the UK and Europe at the moment,
- 3:35Speaker 2: but this is quite recent. So the question now is
- 3:38Speaker 2: whether moving into the next year, this rotation continues, this
- 3:42Speaker 2: idea that you know, the returns from the US are
- 3:45Speaker 2: not going to be exceptional over the next few years,
- 3:47Speaker 2: and you may, on the other hand, get exceptional returns
- 3:50Speaker 2: from the things that have performed horribly over the last
- 3:52Speaker 2: couple of decades. Maybe, just maybe we really are getting
- 3:55Speaker 2: to the point where value might have its day in
- 3:57Speaker 2: the sun. We've seen gold has day in the sound,
- 3:59Speaker 2: of course, maybe small gaps will finally have their time
- 4:05Speaker 2: in the sun. Maybe we will see the one hundred
- 4:08Speaker 2: breakthrough ten thousand diamonds outside John's it will break through
- 4:11Speaker 2: ten thousand for the end of the year at this rate.
- 4:13Speaker 2: So the question for next year does this rotation continue,
- 4:16Speaker 2: And my guess is that it does given the price differences,
- 4:20Speaker 2: given them worries around AI cap ex etc.
- 4:23Speaker 3: But you know, forecasting, I mean I wonder if I
- 4:27Speaker 3: do wonder if the small cups will come back just
- 4:30Speaker 3: because people will have run out of other stuff to buy,
- 4:33Speaker 3: because that does sometimes happen. It can just be a
- 4:36Speaker 3: late cycle thing.
- 4:37Speaker 2: I mean.
- 4:38Speaker 3: The only problem is the small caps always strike me,
- 4:40Speaker 3: has been more exposed to your domestic economy and that's
- 4:46Speaker 3: where they kind of gloom generally as just now that
- 4:49Speaker 3: I mean not just in the UK, I guess actually,
- 4:51Speaker 3: but particularly in the UK, does that feeling that businesses
- 4:55Speaker 3: are constantly being assaulted by the government And if that
- 4:58Speaker 3: doesn't change next year, then eventually somethings can they going
- 5:02Speaker 3: to give at the same thing?
- 5:04Speaker 2: Well, they are cheap, they are cheap, yeah, And of
- 5:07Speaker 2: course you know they're cheap and ignored. You know, there
- 5:10Speaker 2: are fewer there's less money in small caps, and they
- 5:13Speaker 2: used to be across the board in the US and
- 5:15Speaker 2: the UK and in Europe. There are a few fund
- 5:17Speaker 2: managed dedicated to it, et cetera. And as soon as
- 5:19Speaker 2: you get to the point where an area is completely ignored,
- 5:22Speaker 2: it begins to look quite interesting.
- 5:23Speaker 4: And of course value as well.
- 5:24Speaker 2: There are very few fund managers left focusing on value.
- 5:27Speaker 2: There's prankly nobody in the UK who would stand up
- 5:29Speaker 2: and say, look, at me. I'm a value invest simply.
- 5:31Speaker 2: I have quite a few of them on the podcast,
- 5:32Speaker 2: but I think we've had all of them on the podcast.
- 5:34Speaker 3: I think I think of support network for the UK's
- 5:38Speaker 3: value managers frightnically.
- 5:41Speaker 2: Oh anyways, speaking of the UK, we should mention this
- 5:44Speaker 2: week's rate cut. Bank of England has now cut rates
- 5:47Speaker 2: by twenty five basis points.
- 5:49Speaker 4: There are point two five percent.
- 5:50Speaker 2: We are now done at three point seven five percent,
- 5:53Speaker 2: so under four percent. You know, it'd be nice to
- 5:55Speaker 2: look at that and say, well, this is this is
- 5:56Speaker 2: all for good reasons, but of course it's it's really
- 6:00Speaker 2: what to do with bad stuff, isn't it.
- 6:02Speaker 3: Again? The depressing thing about where we're ending the year
- 6:05Speaker 3: for the UK is that it's basically a question of
- 6:09Speaker 3: is growth going to tip over to the point where
- 6:12Speaker 3: you know, we get a recession next year, which was
- 6:14Speaker 3: still that's an outside chance. Is not the thing that
- 6:17Speaker 3: most people expect, but you know, they kind of the
- 6:20Speaker 3: poor quality of the recent data does make you think, oh,
- 6:23Speaker 3: I wonder if that could be a surprise for next year.
- 6:25Speaker 3: And on the other hand, inflation is still much more
- 6:28Speaker 3: persistent than you know, I mean, so the rate now
- 6:32Speaker 3: is it three point seventy five percent, but inflation is
- 6:34Speaker 3: only down to about three point two percent, so we're
- 6:37Speaker 3: still above target. This is by no means what people
- 6:41Speaker 3: in the pre two thousand and eight era would have
- 6:43Speaker 3: considered to be tight monetary policy. And obviously things change,
- 6:46Speaker 3: macro environments change, and this probably is tight, giving how
- 6:50Speaker 3: everyone's feeling. But yeah, it's it's not. It's not an
- 6:55Speaker 3: attractive economy, and most of that thing think it's to be.
- 7:00Speaker 3: It would be fair to see the policy decisions that
- 7:03Speaker 3: have been made have resulted in this, and unless we
- 7:06Speaker 3: change some of them, which doesn't seem likely under the
- 7:09Speaker 3: current government, then I would expect inflation to still be
- 7:14Speaker 3: an issue, but also slow growth to still be an
- 7:16Speaker 3: issue next.
- 7:16Speaker 4: Year, like a mini battle stagflation.
- 7:20Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, just kind of grained and slightly depressing, this
- 7:26Speaker 3: sort of soldiering through environment.
- 7:31Speaker 4: Okay, can you tell you a different No?
- 7:35Speaker 2: I can't, No, I can't, not, as we've discussed endlessly,
- 7:39Speaker 2: not until there is a change of government or a
- 7:42Speaker 2: change of stance.
- 7:43Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 7:43Speaker 2: I mean, I think one of the really interesting things
- 7:46Speaker 2: to watch for next year has got to be the
- 7:48Speaker 2: rollback of the focus on net zero in the UK.
- 7:51Speaker 2: You know, pretty much everybody everywhere else is rolling back,
- 7:55Speaker 2: rolling back, rolling back hasn't really happened in the UK yet,
- 7:58Speaker 2: bits and bobs of much about you know, maybe well
- 8:01Speaker 2: there's maybe that, some changes to the nottoy etc. But
- 8:03Speaker 2: generally speaking we're still on as an extreme and at
- 8:07Speaker 2: zeropath is as we were at the beginning of the
- 8:09Speaker 2: year and the year before that and the year before that.
- 8:11Speaker 2: And that's clearly well, people would argue, but looking at
- 8:15Speaker 2: electricity prices, clearly unsustainable. You can't be an outlier in
- 8:19Speaker 2: this area. So I think that will be one of
- 8:21Speaker 2: the things to watch in the UK next year. And
- 8:23Speaker 2: I think an awful lot of people are watching that.
- 8:25Speaker 2: They are waiting to see a shift in energy prices
- 8:31Speaker 2: and of course electricity supply.
- 8:33Speaker 4: In the UK before they move in here to invest.
- 8:37Speaker 3: I know, I mean that does slightly, why does one
- 8:40Speaker 3: as well? And the energy the year particalarly forcel Fuels
- 8:44Speaker 3: has been the kind of laggered. So if you were
- 8:47Speaker 3: looking for a contrarian bit for next year, as we've mentioned,
- 8:50Speaker 3: let a couple of teams in the podcast, the Energy
- 8:53Speaker 3: said that it is probably the police to look at
- 8:55Speaker 3: this point and if you've got that sense that the
- 8:57Speaker 3: attitude is changing towards it, then I is kind of
- 9:01Speaker 3: pointing that we equate aggressively. There's being classic sort of
- 9:06Speaker 3: contribu employee.
- 9:17Speaker 2: And I wanted to come back to small caps on
- 9:19Speaker 2: the contrarian front because it really is, it is the
- 9:21Speaker 2: big contrarian play. And Pamwa Liberia had a little report
- 9:27Speaker 2: out earlier in the week that I looked at a
- 9:29Speaker 2: really depressing reading looking at US small caps. I am
- 9:33Speaker 2: We're going to end on a positive note. Way everybody,
- 9:36Speaker 2: we will be finishing this podcast this week on a
- 9:39Speaker 2: positive note. So looking back at the last one hundred years,
- 9:43Speaker 2: it's nineteen twenty six, US small cap stocks outperformed large
- 9:47Speaker 2: cap stocks by two point eight five percent years.
- 9:50Speaker 4: That's marvelets.
- 9:51Speaker 2: So you can look at that and you can say,
- 9:52Speaker 2: in the long run, this stuff massively outperformed. You know,
- 9:55Speaker 2: if you look at nearly three percent compounded over even
- 9:58Speaker 2: a decade, we're talking real money. But inside the long
- 10:02Speaker 2: term averages, you've got some really, really nasty and very
- 10:07Speaker 2: lengthy periods of underperformance.
- 10:08Speaker 4: When I say lots, I.
- 10:09Speaker 2: Mean actually two nineteen eighty two to nineteen ninety nine,
- 10:14Speaker 2: a long time, nearly two decades, nearly two decades of
- 10:18Speaker 2: underperforming by one point six percent a year. And then
- 10:21Speaker 2: the second bat of underperformance is the one that we
- 10:23Speaker 2: are deep in right now, underperformance of one point seven
- 10:27Speaker 2: percent year since twenty eighteen, so added not touching the
- 10:31Speaker 2: sides of the length of the underperforming period in the
- 10:35Speaker 2: eightieth and nineties.
- 10:37Speaker 3: Oh man, So what's the good news, because that sounds
- 10:42Speaker 3: like we've gone ten years.
- 10:45Speaker 4: No, no, no, it doesn't have to be so long.
- 10:46Speaker 2: For good news is the when it performs, Boy, it
- 10:48Speaker 2: really outperforms. So nineteen sixty four to nineteen eighty one
- 10:52Speaker 2: a performance by small caps of eight percent a year.
- 10:55Speaker 3: Actually, that's very good.
- 10:56Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, nineteen twenty six to nineteen forty one four
- 11:01Speaker 2: point four percent. Sure, I mean, obviously you can pick
- 11:05Speaker 2: your time periods.
- 11:05Speaker 4: Can't you.
- 11:06Speaker 3: But oh yeah, but it's in decades of whenever it's
- 11:10Speaker 3: that length to tam and we all, you know, we're
- 11:12Speaker 3: all told constantly the small caps, and it's logical the
- 11:16Speaker 3: small caps, although they're very long run, shoot perform big cab.
- 11:20Speaker 2: And particularly when they're as cheap as they are now
- 11:22Speaker 2: relatively speaking. So you know, you look at it now,
- 11:24Speaker 2: and you say this stuff is cheap, this stuff out
- 11:27Speaker 2: of favor. It's been absolutely slammed by the shift to
- 11:30Speaker 2: passive and absolutely slammed by various regulatory things, particularly in
- 11:34Speaker 2: the UK, so it's got.
- 11:36Speaker 4: To come back.
- 11:37Speaker 2: On the other hand, if you've invested in US small
- 11:39Speaker 2: caps over the last forty years, just the last forty
- 11:42Speaker 2: so not going back to nineteen twenty six, and averaged
- 11:44Speaker 2: out the app performance and the underformance, you can't barely
- 11:47Speaker 2: have managed to keep pace with large capstocks a little
- 11:49Speaker 2: and beat them.
- 11:50Speaker 3: So yeah, that's interesting.
- 11:54Speaker 2: Yeah, the optimistic take is that's where the growth is,
- 11:58Speaker 2: that's where the value is, as where the long term performances.
- 12:01Speaker 4: So maybe next year.
- 12:02Speaker 3: I would think the Magnificent seven or sort of varieties
- 12:06Speaker 3: of the Magnificent seven must make a big difference in
- 12:09Speaker 3: the US law, because the whole point about them is
- 12:11Speaker 3: the large caps that could all like small.
- 12:13Speaker 4: Caps, yes, until they don't.
- 12:16Speaker 3: Until they're doing We'll see about that.
- 12:20Speaker 2: So I mean, you know, we're saying, well, well, we'll
- 12:22Speaker 2: talk about this a lot in the new year, I think,
- 12:24Speaker 2: but you're seeing quite a lot of cracks appearing across
- 12:28Speaker 2: the AI story.
- 12:29Speaker 4: I mean, just have a look at oracle, look at oracle.
- 12:33Speaker 3: And also just before Warboo called and silver, why why
- 12:38Speaker 3: have they had such a whaled year?
- 12:43Speaker 4: Do you think, Well, I don't know, im. You know,
- 12:46Speaker 4: they say gold is insurance and silver is a warning. Right, yeah,
- 12:51Speaker 4: so gold.
- 12:53Speaker 2: Looking at what's been going on across the last year,
- 12:55Speaker 2: everyone has been absolutely fine, was staying in inequities and
- 12:58Speaker 2: seeing bill markets across the board.
- 13:00Speaker 4: But also everyone's a bit said.
- 13:01Speaker 2: Well, maybe i'll just ensure that you know, and that's gold,
- 13:04Speaker 2: and it is the basement trade, and in particular it's
- 13:07Speaker 2: this new regular price and sensitive buyer in the.
- 13:10Speaker 4: Form of the world Central banks.
- 13:12Speaker 2: So all that's in there for gold, silver to w
- 13:15Speaker 2: and a silver's more your area. I mean, obviously it
- 13:18Speaker 2: tends to it tends to catch up with gold, and
- 13:21Speaker 2: then it tends to have little manias.
- 13:22Speaker 4: So maybe this is a little silver mania.
- 13:24Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think that makes sense if it was
- 13:27Speaker 3: a bit like the way the gold miners suddenly walk
- 13:29Speaker 3: up and realize that gold was at twice the place
- 13:32Speaker 3: the last time they had a decent ryn.
- 13:35Speaker 2: And so so it makes sense. You know, if you've
- 13:37Speaker 2: made some money out of gold, it makes sense to
- 13:39Speaker 2: turn to silver and there we go. I mean, I'm
- 13:43Speaker 2: definitely keeping my gold. I don't think looking at the
- 13:47Speaker 2: geopolitical environment that now is the right time to not
- 13:50Speaker 2: have your gold. But I'm not sure i'd be rushing
- 13:52Speaker 2: out by a pair of silver right now. That's more
- 13:54Speaker 2: of a speculation than an insurance for me.
- 13:57Speaker 3: Yeah, And actually, this is a long time reader actually
- 14:01Speaker 3: emailed me after I wrote about silver recently and said
- 14:04Speaker 3: that just taking a pile of the family kind of
- 14:07Speaker 3: silver tea sets and their looms that they didn't want
- 14:10Speaker 3: any more down a silver smeltery and got them got
- 14:15Speaker 3: them to downy hard cash. So I thought that kind
- 14:18Speaker 3: of is that is a problem with silver, because there's
- 14:20Speaker 3: a lot of scrap silver out there, And if someone
- 14:25Speaker 3: who's as relatively well informed as this particular reader was
- 14:28Speaker 3: doing that, it does make me think, Okay, maybe we're
- 14:31Speaker 3: in certainly in the later stages of this this silver mania.
- 14:37Speaker 2: A lot.
- 14:38Speaker 3: That reminds me one other really interesting statistic that I
- 14:40Speaker 3: still haven't properly shared anywhere, the fact that announced the
- 14:46Speaker 3: silver is now worth more than a barrel of oil.
- 14:49Speaker 3: That's not since nineteen eighty.
- 14:54Speaker 2: Yeah, and how long after it passed through that milestone.
- 14:58Speaker 4: Did the silver price collapse.
- 15:00Speaker 3: A day I've been nineteen eighty was very you know,
- 15:04Speaker 3: a spike for silver, which to be feel this this
- 15:07Speaker 3: kind of hasn't been but yeah, no, it's a silver
- 15:10Speaker 3: being at party with oil is quite something. I mean,
- 15:12Speaker 3: obviously it was a party with oil when oil went
- 15:15Speaker 3: negative in twenty twenty, but that doesn't really count. So
- 15:20Speaker 3: that I thought that was a very thought provoking start.
- 15:22Speaker 3: I don't know what thought very much. Quite a number.
- 15:27Speaker 2: Okay, So for next year, watch the gold price, watched
- 15:30Speaker 2: the silver price. Maybe I bother with the bitcoin price.
- 15:33Speaker 2: Watch sorry, watch energy already coming in.
- 15:40Speaker 4: Nobody writes hate mail at Christmas?
- 15:43Speaker 3: Do they some of the doing droppings. I get a
- 15:46Speaker 3: pretty fruity You still get round robins the door, thankfully
- 15:50Speaker 3: I always hated them.
- 15:53Speaker 2: I don't think people do this anymore. No round robbers,
- 15:55Speaker 2: no haymail. Everyone just you know, focused on your own Christmas.
- 15:59Speaker 2: Watch gold, watch the watch energy, really interesting, Watch what
- 16:03Speaker 2: happens with net zero in the UK? Watch small caps,
- 16:08Speaker 2: and keep an eye on the growth value intersection.
- 16:13Speaker 4: Anything else, John.
- 16:14Speaker 3: No, I think that is a wonderful have owned up.
- 16:19Speaker 2: And yeah, all that remains, go and you say it,
- 16:23Speaker 2: You say it.
- 16:24Speaker 3: All that remains very mady Christmas listeners.
- 16:28Speaker 4: Hey, Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas for all our listeners. Thank you, John,
- 16:33Speaker 4: you good to you. Thank you.
- 16:36Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to this week's maryn Talks Money Debrief.
- 16:39Speaker 2: If you like us show, rate, review, and subscribe wherever
- 16:42Speaker 2: you listen to podcasts. Also be sure to follow me
- 16:44Speaker 2: and John on x or Twitter at maryns W and
- 16:46Speaker 2: John Underscore Stepic. This episode was produced by some Siety,
- 16:50Speaker 2: production support and sound design by Moses and Happy Christmas
- 16:54Speaker 2: to you two as well.
- 16:55Speaker 4: Thank you for all your work this year. Questions are
- 16:57Speaker 4: going on this show and all our shows.
- 16:58Speaker 2: Always welcome our show emails Marimoni at Bloomberg dot net.
- 17:03Speaker 2: There you go, Christmas Christmas Wishes on the podcast
- 17:12Speaker 1: H