Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

Welcome to the Merin Talks Money Market Rap, where we talk about the biggest moves in the markets this week and what is driving them.

I'm Maren Thumsep, Web Editor at Large for Bloomberg UK Wealth.

And I'm joined Stevik, senior reporter of Bloomberg and author at the Money Disturbed newsletter, Award winning multi.

Award Someone please give the podcast an award award, Please, please, please, someone give us an award so we can be multi award winning because being slightly slightly underneath John's newsletter messes with my head a little.

Anyway, It's been an exciting week, right John been able to put the budget behind us, now we haven't.

We can never about the punche behind us.

But we're not going to talk about the budget.

We're going to talk about the excitements and the investment trust industry because we feel like we've participated in them.

Just a little downing.

Yeah, yeah, I feel that we should mention this one because this is the collapse of the mega merger between Hickel and Trigg.

And obviously regular podcast listeners will remember that we had Chris Claudier of Capital Gearing Asset Management on the other day basically saying why the merger was a bad idea and now it has basically fallen through due to pressure from shareholders, which would have included Christopher and his colleagues cg EM and Yeah, to be honest, I mean, I think we would both agree that this was not really a great deal for shareholders, especially not Hickeld shareholders.

And it's probably a good thing that it's gone by the way.

Site and it's interesting that you know, shareholder is getting involved and a lot of activity in the sector, but Shaholder isn't looking at what's best for them analyzing these deals probably and nothing is just be waved through it.

Yeah, it's nice to see.

I mean, it is nice to see.

I mean, you know, you talk about shareholder democracy specifically a lot, and the investment trust area is one place where I think we have seen a great deal of it this year because obviously it started off with SABA, the US activist Edge found you know, kind of requisition in meetings at seven different investment trusts and then losing the vote at all of them, but then also managing to make changes that arguably certainly in some cases were probably for the best.

So I mean, I think it's from that point of view it has been a good year for investment trusts, particularly because the other issue is, I mean, the Hickeling Trigg merger is indicative of too much bloat in the sector that came about arguably during the zero interest rate era.

And although this wasn't the way he kind of go about fixing that, I think, I mean, certainly most of the brokers think that it puts that sort of sector in play.

As they say, so maybe someone else will come along in bed for Trig, or someone else will come along and I'm possibly even bid for Heckel, depending on whether they you know, had been thinking about it due to this merger taking place.

So no, so I think it's I mean, it's pretty positive.

And what about the other big thing that happened this week, which is the proposed merger between Bailey Gifford US Growth and Edinburgh Worldwide Investment so two to Bailey Gifford Trusts and they proposed a merger both being a real discount.

Sort of similar things going on, and SABA has has shared in those as well and immediately said that they weren't mad for that.

Yeah, well, this is an interesting because this is SABA sort of coming back to the headlines there were this one.

I mean because obviously Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust was one of the trusts they took a tilt at the start of the year.

Basically they've come back this.

I mean, this is a kind of tricky one because SABA owns about thirty percent or certainly is it has stakes about thirty percent, and each of these trusts clearly is quite keen to get hold of them.

I think probably one of the most interesting things about the trust is they both hold quite decent stakes in SpaceX, which obviously the long masks big satellite company.

It's one of the few private companies that you know, people probably value it more highly than you know, it's paper and I have would be because everyone's so excited about it.

So I can't help but think that this is the prize for SABA and the difficulty then as well, you know, is any of this best for the other shareholders And obviously, I mean it's up to the other shareholders to vote on that.

Because sabas now requisitioned the general meeting to oust the current board of WI and replace it.

Now I'm sorry, I'm wondering why this will go any differently to the previous kind of vote.

But then again, Sabat owns more of WI now than.

It used to and is nearly Christmas around's a little distracted.

Yeah, that too, So we'll just need to see what happens.

This is one to keep an eye on, definitely.

Now moving on to a subsector of our favorite subject.

So the gold price has been marvelous recently.

We're firmly above four thousand again and staying there and with a little bit of volatility.

But relative to digital gold, your bitcoin digital tulips, I think we'll call it now, depends which you want to go on this, but relative to that, gold is an absolute bastion of stability and value.

Right, So that's all going fine.

We've talked about gold a million times in this podcast.

Everyone knows what's going on there.

But one thing that you've been saying for ages is that the excitement really starts when silver starts moving.

And I think listeners will remember quite how excitable you got when the silver price went through fifty dollars and more, hasn't it.

Yeah, everyone needs a hobby, you know, everyone needs a hobby of some bit of tennis, archery, riding, I don't know.

But for John's watching the silver price, yeah, it really is just watching it because again it's one of those things when I say win.

Any So, the last toy that silver's got anywhere near fifty dollars announce it collapsed in a massive bear market shortly after US.

That's nineteen eighty and twenty eleven.

But this time around, silver's not only got up to fifty, it's nice to kind of sol through it quite convincingly.

And I think as we speak about fifty seven, we gotup to fifty eight yesterday or the day before, and it mostly seems to be I mean, the immediate move mostly seems to be down sort of because there's been all this talk of tariffs on rare earth metals and other industrial metals, and silver sort of ended up on that list.

There's also been all of this kind of movement to silver out of the out of London, which is the main market, was traded in twenty other markets.

So basically is it physically moving out of London?

Yeah, yeah, no, physically.

So there's been one of a couple of colleagues, one of the Commodities desk, and they were writing some very interesting stuff about this, where it's actually at one point dead become what people actually flying silver over because silver isn't normally like you might charter a flight to fly gold over because obviously gold, you know, you get a lot of value per pound of gold, whereas if you're going to charter a flight to fly a load of silver ringletch you're not actually able to put that much weight on the plane.

But actually it was worth doing it kind of recently.

But that's all I mean, that's all the kind of technical stuff about you know, silver not quite being where it needs to be, and that's all down to, well, there is actually kind of jewelry and industrial demand, there's also added investment demand, so the ETFs needs silver to you know, be located in certain places.

But beyond that, it's also the fact that Donald Trump has kind of dropped a very heavy hint that the next Fed chief is going to be a chap called Kevin Hassett, and the market assumption is that he's going to be much more you know, keen on lower interest rates than they've got got so be basically an easy money fed because gold did bounds too.

It's just gold hasn't gone quite as kind of nutty as silver because basically the market is larger and more.

Liquid about silver as a monetary metal.

Well, definitely, yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that I mean, the interesting thing about silver is, as well as being a very kind of small, kind of fairly you know like type market, it's the fact that it's unlike gold, it is industrial, a lot of it is used in industry, but like gold, it actually has a monetary component, which basically none of the other precious metals to I mean, like Russia once tried to make it back to platinum coins, but they didn't take off.

So basically gold and silver are the only precious metals that I've ever been used as money for a prolonged period of time.

I think the way the way I put it the other day and Money Distilled, is that their monetary salience has gone up as people have become more concerned about the you know, the current global financial system.

I mean, I think one thing I always think it is interesting if you look at the absolute bottom for gold during the free floating standard that was in the late nineties, and gold hit rock bottom just about at the same time as the Euro was launched, and I think the Euro, if you like, is the kind of the symbol of a heupistic belief in fi currency and the ability of governments to essentially, you know, create a single currency that was bolted from all these different nation states and gold kind of reaching it's in the deer at that point.

I think it's just almost is very symbolic of what was going on at the time.

And now we've got gold at a record high, when you know, the US dollar standard itself is in doubt because it's kind of fracturing.

It's no longer viewed as a politically neutral standard.

It's now you've got to be.

The friendlier you are with the US, the more the US dollar system favors you, and vice versa.

So yeah, So basically, I think that the monetary celions of gold and silver has gone up and that's being reflected in the place.

Okay, interesting, that should bring us, I think briefly, briefly onto bitcoin.

I mean, we mentioned it briefly at the beginning, but you know, it's had a very very volatile few weeks, right and the beginning of this week, you know, down eight percent, then back up to pretty much where it was before.

And there's long list of ideas about why it is that it might have gone up again, what it is that it went down in the birthplace, and you know gold didn't follow it.

And I've been looking through the list of things that people think might have forced bitcoin down, and then you know, it's it's everything for every it's profit taking.

Is it about?

Is it about what we usedpeak called micro strategy, now called strategy, and about the possibility that they might sell some bitcoin we think it was said that they never would, or some of the other treasuries might have to sell some bitcoin suppliers more than you thought.

Is it about, Oh, I don't know, And we did.

We did a conversation the the day that you will hear on the podcast in a few weeks with that nice man from Saxo Bank about the unexpected, unexpected things that might happen next year, and one of those was that QDA might come earlier than you think.

So suddenly quantum computing takes hugely forward and all your passwords are completely irrelevant, there's no encryption left, etc.

But one of the other things that everyone's talking about the moment is the yen carry trade, which you and I've talked about before, but now seems to be really beginning to kick off, or rather reversal lot.

So it's been going on for years.

When cheap money flows out of Japan, people use that cheap money to invest or speculate, their makes some money, they pay back the debt, they keep the change.

Very easy trade right going on forever.

But it's based on the assumption that interest rates in Japan remain very very low, you know, close to zero.

And don't forget it wasn't that long ago the interest raised in Japan but negative.

So the trade relies on verging on free money.

And of course Japanese rates are now going up sharp, rising JGB yields, and there's lots of discussion about with the Bank of Japan will actually raise interest rates this much this month, So when that happens suddenly, I'm in Albert Edwards, who he had on the podcast a few weeks ago.

I know he's a perma bear, but nonetheless his is a clever one.

He's a clever one.

The unwinding of the carry trade could cause a loud sucking noise in US financial assets, and of course particularly in those that are very heavily leveraged, and a lot of people who buy bitcoin do it with that so very heavy leverage trade in lots of cases.

So maybe that has something to do with what happened to bitcoin, and maybe that was some kind of canary in the coal mine for what happened.

As Japanese rates continue to go up, what might happen across the board.

I mean, Albert says, if you're going to learn about anything over Christmas, make absolutely sure that it's how the yen carry trade works.

Be sure you understand how that fits into the financial system, because you may well need that information.

Yeah, I mean, I play it all in two thousand and eight.

Absolutely, Yeah, it's therefore as one he can I keep an eye on joined.

Well, it's very complicated.

I mean, you know, it's like it's like all these things.

You can make it as complicated, but it's really in essence, it's very straightforward.

In fact, I think I just I think I just explained it to.

This podcast a couple of times.

You'll be fine, Yeah, this is not complicated stuff, although obviously it might feel complicated.

It's your portfolio collapses right anyway.

At this point, John You're sorry you don't have steal.

You're sorry you don't have as much gold as you like.

Be quite glad you haven't got bitcoin, aren't you.

Yes, Like I said, it still needs to fall ninety five percent for me to be in the money technically, but it's it's a start.

I mean, it is important to remember every every time Bitcoin has these these volatile moments, as it just did, and you go look at that, look at that down eight percent, down sixteen percent, et cetera, you've got to remember that in the last five years alone, it's still up four hundred percent.

So the bitcoin naysayers that are ees, we still look ridiculous.

Oh yeah, And I mean it's collapsed quite a few times and it has so far always come back.

So at the harving, John, it's all about the harving.

The it's sorry the hovening.

Yeah, that one.

See, we know we are done with the kids.

We know a trip to we do.

We have to stop that, We have to Thanks for listening to this week's Marin Talks Money Debrief.

If you like our show, rate review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

Also, be sure to follow me and John on ex or Twitter, at Marinas w and John Underscore Steppe.

This episode was produced by Sersadi Productions, supported by Moses and Questions and comments on this show and all our shows are always welcome.

Our show email is Merimney at Bloomberg dot net