Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
5/2/202640 min
Introducing a new video podcast from the FT: Does scientific, artistic or political brilliance translate into investing success? It’s a topical question with hedge funds today accused of sucking talent away from the rest of the economy. So, the FT’s Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth sat down with reporter Toby Nangle, who has dug into the archives to assess the investment portfolios of Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, John Maynard Keynes and other widely regarded geniuses of the past. What Toby found may surprise you, as will the historical wildcard he’s unearthed.
To enjoy future episodes, be sure to subscribe to The Story of Money wherever you get your podcasts, also on the show's dedicated YouTube channel here.
Learn more at ft.com/tsom
Want more?
Read Toby’s full FT article here.
Toby’s sources:
On Churchill: https://www.amazon.co.uk/No-More-Champagne-Churchill-Money/dp/1784081817
On J.M.W. Turner: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5718586
On John Maynard Keynes: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2023011
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2287262
On Jane Austen: https://jasna.org/publications-2/persuasions-online/vol36no1/toran/
Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth
Guest: Toby Nangle
Producer: Lulu Smyth
Senior Producers: Michela Tindera and Laurence Knight
Executive Producers: Flo Phillips and Manuela Saragosa
Original music: Breen Turner
Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Giuompasis
Podcast Development: Laura Clarke
FT Global Head of Audio: Cheryl Brumley
Video editor: Josh Divney at Podcast Discovery
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMark Filippino· Host0:01
Hey guys, it's Mark. I wanna take a moment to share an episode of a brand new video podcast from the Financial Times. It's called The Story of Money. It's hosted by my FT colleagues, columnist Gillian Tett and Alphaville editor Robin Wigglesworth, who have both been on The Briefing many, many times. The Story of Money is a history show for finance geeks and a finance show for history buffs, and if you're neither, well, Gillian and Robin might just make you both. In the episode we're sharing today, Robin, Gillian, and FT reporter Toby Nangle discuss whether some of history's great minds, from Winston Churchill to Isaac Newton, also made for great investors. If you like what you hear, you can find new episodes every Wednesday on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Enjoy.
Robin Wigglesworth· Host0:43
I want to talk about Winston Churchill. What kind of investor was he?
Toby Nangle· Guest0:48
It really kind of makes your skin crawl, some of the things that he got up to along the way. He was given this advance that was worth close to over 7 million pounds in it, inflation adjusted, or close to 18 million pounds in GDP adjusted, uh, terms. He'd lost it all.
Robin Wigglesworth· Host1:03
Oh, wow. He w- lost it all i- i- in the crash, in the stock market?
Toby Nangle· Guest1:07
No, no, just trading. There were these nine trading days ending the 18th of October where he really went into overdrive. He traded $620,000 worth of stock. You know, 18 million pounds worth, adjusted for contemporary exchange rates, and that trading activity just saw him completely wiped out.
Unknown speaker1:27
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