David Kuo chats to Charlie Parker, director at Citywire financial publishers.
Fool.co.uk's David Kuo chats with Charlie Parker, director at Citywire financial publishers. Charlie reveals the secret behind the success of four of the UK's most successful investors: Giles Hargreave, Leigh Harrison, John Chatfeild Roberts and Neil Woodford. Charlie also looks at the problems facing investors following the recent Jackson Hole symposium.
You can listen to or download the full podcast here.
David:
This is Money Talk, the weekly investing podcast from The Motley Fool. I am David Kuo, and my guest today is not only a good friend of mine, he is also a UK market specialist. He knows everything there is to know about fund managers, and he is also an expert in wealth management, and to top it all, he's an all-round nice guy. He is Charlie Parker, director at Citywire financial publishers, and he is with me now. So welcome to Money Talk, Charlie.
Charlie:
Thanks, David – that was an amazing introduction!
David:
Did you like that?
Charlie:
I'm feeling flushed!
David:
Well, I hope you're not going to disappoint our listeners, because we have an awful lot to get through, the first question being the UK market. What is your take on UK shares right now, Charlie?
Charlie:
It's a really tough time. The fund managers all say there's a lot of value out there, and certainly, if you look at the valuations of companies, there's some real opportunities. There's companies that own huge things like ships that are valued at less than the value of their ships. There's all sorts of stuff out there, where you think, surely this is a valuation opportunity and a time to buy in. But at the same time, I think it's a bit like there's this sort of huge weight on top of the market, which is the eurozone crisis, and which is a general sentiment surrounding the UK economy, rational or irrational, and it just keeps sort of pushing everything down. So it's not a bad time to be buying shares, but don't expect anything to happen, I guess, for a little while, once you've bought them.
David:
Well, I mean you talk about things being valued below their book value. One classic example would be the banks. I mean, the banks are about 50% below their book value. So why aren't people piling in there, and buying these banks?
Charlie:
Well, we don't believe their book value, do we? If you still believe everything on a bank balance sheet, then you've been asleep for the last five years, I mean, that's the problem. What's in their book? Their book is US properties; do we think UK properties are worth what they are? Then you get into a whole issue of, well, not really. I mean, surely they've got to come down at some point? UK companies – do we think UK companies are going to do okay in this environment? Some will; some won't. So it's just incredibly hard to sort of look inside these things, and actually have confidence in the valuations that you're getting. I think we'll also say, look – all this sort of furore about bonuses, it does have a real relevance to investors, because you just don't feel yet like the guys running these institutions are on your side. They are ultimately trying to keep their key staff happy with enormous pay, and they believe that if they can do that, then ultimately it will pay off for investors – the rest of us disagree. We think what will pay off for investors is if they give us some dividends please, and actually start putting some of their cash to work to grow their businesses.
David:
So why do you think there is this constant flipping between risk on, and risk off? All of a sudden, it's risk on, and everybody ploughs into the market. The next minute, it's risk off, and then everybody takes the money off the table and puts it into bonds that pay them absolutely nothing. Why is this controversy going on between investors?
Charlie:
I think it's kind of because there's some situations that exist in the world, which like have a binary outcome. The European crisis has a binary outcome. It'll either muddle through and is okay, or it goes catastrophically wrong. So it sort of stands to reason that, on the days where you are verging towards it possibly going catastrophically wrong, then you don't want to do anything other than run to the hills, and then you have those days when you wake up and you think, they'll find a way through – they have so far, and everyone gets more optimistic again. It's those sort of realities that are there.
I think the other aspect of it, the other thing which is really making it just so hard to understand what's happening to share prices, is that every asset in the world, every investment, is priced off every other investment – they're all interlinked. The most fundamental way to value something is the value of lending to the government. If I get one percent lending to the British government, then I can say, okay, well, how much do I need to get if I'm going to lend to a company; how much do I need to get if I'm going to lend to my friend? You can work it out based on how safe it is to lend to a government. Well, at the moment that pricing mechanism is broken, because it's incredibly, you get almost no return from lending money to governments that you think are actually not very good investments – they've got huge debts. So that whole basis of pricing, everything, it's like broken, and as long as that's broken, then it becomes very difficult to start saying, well how much should a share be worth? How much should that corporate bond be worth? What is a reasonable rate for a bank to loan somebody money? And I think that's at the heart of it, and it just skews the whole system, messes the whole system up. All those people who've got so much ideological certainty about what is good value and bad value, it's all thrown out the window, because the basic thing at the heart of it is broken.
David:
So do you think that Ben Bernanke at his Jackson Hole symposium has actually done enough to try and regain the confidence of investors and also, more importantly, companies to start investing themselves?
Charlie:
Yes, Ben Bernanke is saying, effectively we'll do more QE if we need to, and I'm sure he will. I'm sure the Fed will end up printing more money, because that is an institution which is programmed to try and get the US economy moving. That's what it's for. It's different to central banks, like the Bank of England have got other more complex mandates. They're just trying to get the thing going, and so they will do what they need to do, do that and they will print more money. Does the market think that will work? They think it'll work a bit, but it's sort of decreasing returns. The first bout of QE had a huge effect, like a massive shot of steroids in the arm of the market. The second round of QE, it did help – actually, all the US economic data was dropping and the QE2 came in, and it boosted everything up, but not as much as the first lot. I think the basic view is that QE3 will help a bit, but not as much. It's decreasing returns. The main thing that they want to do, I think, ultimately, and what in the UK the Bank of England wants to do, to stimulate the economy, there's only one thing they can do, and that's find a way to make our mortgages cheaper, basically. The only thing that would make a huge difference to my personal finances, to be honest, would be if suddenly my mortgage interest dropped by £200 - £300 a month – well, that's real money in my pocket, I can go and spend it, and I guess, how do they do that? Well, they do that by trying to manipulate interest rates, by trying to get the cost of lending over the long term down, as well as the short term. But all of it is kind of just nursing a very sick patient, just trying to keep it ticking over. None of it's addressing the illnesses that are in the world economy, and so it gradually has less effect on that sick patient.
David:
So what about the Europeans? What does the ECB have? Because ultimately, here in the UK, we are a home-owning democracy, whereas over in Europe, it is less so. So therefore, cutting interest rates in Europe isn't really going to have that much effect on the consumer, is it?
Charlie:
No, I mean it will have some effect in the sense that it will arguably support companies to improve their positions, and it will have a stimulating effect on growth, but no, it doesn't stimulate the consumer to the same extent as it does in the UK, and arguably it also creates inflation in Germany, it creates all sorts of different problems. But what the ECB has got is the opportunity to surprise the market positively, and the Bank of England and the Fed don't really have that. We expect these institutions to do everything they can to get things moving. The ECB, because it's capable of acts of utter insanity every sort of couple of years, like the last time it raised rates a couple of years ago, when we all thought the world was going to end, and all that sort of stuff – because it has that going on in its psyche, it does have the capacity to surprise markets positively. They can come out and do more than we expect, and that has an enormously positive effect, particularly because it makes people much more relaxed about lending to governments in Spain and Italy, and that just gives them time, it buys them time, and buying time to resolve this European crisis is no small thing. Actually, it's really helpful, because every month that the euro doesn't collapse is arguably a month where people can start to pay their debts down a bit. They can start to reform a bit, and we can cast doubt on how effective all of this will be, but gradually it will happen, so they can buy time, and they can surprise us along the way, and that will help.
David:
But the one question that people are asking, Charlie, is, where has all this money gone? Over in America, they've printed well over a trillion dollars into the US economy; they've printed and pumped over a trillion euros, and here in the UK, I lose track of how much money's been pumped in the UK economy – it's around 400 billion. So where has all this money gone? Why isn't it making a difference?
Charlie:
It's a really, really important question, and I think the answer is that it's going into companies who haven't spent it. Companies have effectively got their hands on it, the banks in particular, but other institutions have used it to build up their balance sheet and they're keeping that cash safe. Actually, it poses a really important social question – in the United States now, workers are getting the lowest percentage of national GDP they've got for 60 years, so ordinary men are getting in their salaries less from companies than they've got since the War, since the Second World War. What does that do? Well, it says that we've got a society where increasingly, because we're scared of so much, companies are hoarding all their cash, it's not being given to people, and that creates a backdrop for all sorts of things – industrial action, which we've seen happening; strikes and all the rest of it; unease; a lack of commitment to paying tax revenues, because people don't think the system is supporting them. So it's a really difficult question, and desperately, really, we need to get some of this cash out of companies and put it to work in the economy, in the United States, and in the UK in particular, but also in Europe, and they can do that by taxing companies, or they can do it by trying to incentivise them in some way to spend this money, by taking on workers and so forth and creating jobs. That's a really urgent challenge for the new US president, and for the governments in the UK and Europe, and frankly our government in the UK hasn't really had the courage to sort of deliver a tough message to companies, that they really need to find a way to get employment up, to deploy some of their cash piles, or they haven't found a way to incentivise it. But if they could, there's a lot of money in the world that could be put to work to help rebuild this economy, and at the moment everyone's just sitting on it.
David:
Okay, so how difficult is this for fund managers right now, given the confusion in the market? I know you recently spoke to a bunch of really high-profile fund managers. They include Giles Hargreave at Hargreave Hales; Leigh Harrison at Threadneedle; John Chatfeild-Roberts, who I've actually met at Jupiter; Neil Woodford at Invesco Perpetual – the god. So what can private investors learn from professional investors, in order not to make mistakes that would cost them money?
Charlie:
What do these guys have in common? It's a really interesting question. We've been following them for 10 years, 10 years on our Citywire ratings (we rate fund managers). These are the 10 people who've done best over the whole 10 years, so they've had to kind of conquer great bull markets and sort of plunging bear markets along the way. What unites them, I think, none of them kind of blind you with science. You meet some fund managers who give you massive ... talk way over your head. These are really sensible guys, actually. They talk about basic principles, about finding good companies, and they're not trying to blind you, but they all have a sort of ability to be slightly kind of sceptical about short-term events, and retain in their mind a kind of fixed idea about where they think things are going. Now, lots of fund managers can do that – not all of them get that right, the fixed idea in the future, but these 10 are all people who can do that. They kind of have in their mind an understanding of where everything is going, and then they're willing to sort of fit their decisions into that, rather than into what's happening on a day-by-day basis, and at the moment that's particularly relevant, because as you said earlier, you have days where you just think the world's going to end, and then you have another day, you think everything's all right. If you make investment decisions on that basis, you're almost guaranteed to make bad investment decisions, because it is pretty unlikely that either of those things are true. They're all people who kind of look ahead; they're all people who really care, because they are complete workaholics. One of the people there, Giles Hargreave, who is probably Britain's most successful investor in smaller companies, he has his own firm, Hargreave Hale, I tell an anecdote about how, if you see him at a party on the night after a bad day on the market, he is the most miserable git you can possibly encounter. He's the sort of guy that can be the life and soul of the party, but you give him a bad day on the market, he is miserable. So they are massively emotionally engaged and determined, but without falling into the trap of believing everything that happens along the way. That's kind of an incredibly impressive sort of psychological accomplishment, I think.
David:
So he takes it personally, in other words, yeah?
Charlie:
It just feels it; you can see it on his face, and they're all like that actually. They're all like that.
David:
But I thought people were meant to be detached from the market? How can you, on the one hand, feel it, and then on the hand, be completely detached from the market, and say, I am right and the market is wrong?
Charlie:
That's the sort of odd psychological balance that these guys have to come to terms with. Neil Woodford, you mentioned, one of the things we said to him was, if you had to give a tip to a young fund manager, and you could just as easily apply it to any of us, what would it be? – and he said, you've got to have the right balance of arrogance and humility. I think what he means is, you've got to be arrogant enough to kind of keep in your mind your central understanding about where things are going, but you also can't be belligerent – you've got to be humble enough that, as you see your investors' money dropping on a day, you feel it with them – you have that emotional connection to it happening, so it's a really difficult challenge, putting that together.
There are some kind of principles, I guess, that would help, sort of on a practical basis, for you or I, trying to do it. One of them, which is really important, I think, is to forget the price you paid for a share. Once you've bought a share, try and understand the right price to sell it, and if you refer back to the price you bought it, then actually you're picking like a data point – it doesn't have any actual relevance. If you can do that, then what you actually do is, you share the whole load of psychological baggage, because you shed that thing within you saying, I want to sell it for more than I bought it for – I must sell it for more than I bought it for. If you can get rid of that, that's a real help, and I think that a lot of these guys have been able to sort of shed that psychological baggage, because then they're looking at outcomes, rather than proving that they were right all along the way. So there's some sort of practical stuff, but if truth be told ...
David:
Well, one of the fund managers that you spoke to said, you need to admit when you are wrong – is that what you're actually referring to there?
Charlie:
Yeah, you need to look at the share, and say, does it deserve to be the price it is today? And make that judgement. The problem is that, I remember a guy who used to run a big fund management company, he said to me, when I actually went to someone to run my own money, he retired, he made some money, he went along to a financial advisor, a wealth manager, I guess, and he said to him, look – I don't mind you running with your winners, right? But do not run with your losers, and that was his sort of one thing – I don't want you to forget that, when you've got my money. That's part of it, because you've got a stock – it's gone down, it's gone down, it's gone down – you want to hold it, because you want to prove you're right all along, and that again is, all that baggage just, it's holding you down and restricting your capacity to make a good decision. Then you start running with a winner – you believed it all along, I still believe it, I still believe it – okay, it comes back a bit, well fine – you can live with that, you can live with having made a bit less than you thought, but what you can't live with is the belligerence of not being willing to admit you've been wrong all along. So that's where the humility comes in – it's difficult, it's hard. I think the psychological elements, to be honest, are harder than the technical ones, than the practical ones.
David:
Now, John Chatfeild-Roberts said, you only need to be right 51% of the time – what do you make of that comment?
Charlie:
You know, a lot of fund managers say that, and it's not always wrong. If you're investing, for example, in very small companies, then quite often you're investing small amounts in a lot of different companies, and the one that goes right goes really right, and so it doesn't matter as much. But it only really works if you've got a lot of holdings – if you've got a huge number of holdings, and you're right 51% of the time, you're better than who, than the market. Now, for me, with my money, my objective is not to look better than anyone else – obviously, my objective is that I don't lose my money, and I make enough to meet my objectives. But fund managers don't think like that – they're sitting there, and their job is to be better than the guy next to them, because that's how they keep their job, so then, 51% - well, 51% is enough, but it's probably not enough for me, but it's enough for the fund manager there, so I think that's what he was alluding to. Obviously, the fewer shares you've got, the less relevant that comment is.
David:
Okay, now what is quite remarkable about these guys is that they all have very different investing styles. One of the comments that was made by these professional investors was, stick to simple investment processes. As far as the private investor is concerned, one of the big problems they have is, they don't know what their investing style is. When you spoke to these people, how apparent was it that these people had, from the very early age, an investing style? That Neil Woodford, the day that he was born, realised that he was an income investor, and that nothing else actually would be right for him?
Charlie:
I think they broadly are all pretty consistent; actually, most of them are value managers. The majority of these guys are value managers – they're trying to buy things at the right price, and sell them when they've done well, but they're not sort of ultra-value managers. There's a kind of balance to it. I think the kind of key to understanding the sort of investor you are is understanding how you are best at understanding a company. Some people are really good at looking at a company, and having a sort of a sense about how that company will do. If you've got that ability, and you'll know you've got that ability once you've done it four or five times, not when you've done it once, then you can think about being a growth investor, because maybe you really can pick the next Microsoft, maybe you really can, but not many people are like that. If you don't have that gift, if you can't look yourself in the face and say, no, I do have that gift, then I think you want to be a value investor, right? You want to buy something that's cheap, you want to buy something where you can see where the assets are, and you want to buy something where you can see that they've got a lot of sources of revenue, so that it's not all going to fall off a cliff. I think what unites a lot of these guys is that they don't believe that they are sort of supernaturally-gifted in their ability to spot the next Microsoft, so they kind of keep to some basic principles. They don't overly trust their own judgement – they say, okay, I do need to see that it's actually reasonably priced; I do need to see some transparency of where the company's making its money; I do need to see this stuff. So really, I think it's that kind of key question – do I have a special gift for picking a company which might be expensive but is going to go on to rule the world, or not, and if I don't, then for heaven's sake, just buy the stuff cheap.
David:
So if you had to pick one out of the five that you think would outperform over the next 10 years, which one would it be, Charlie? I'll give you the names again – Giles Hargreave, Leigh Harrison at Threadneedle, John Chatfeild-Roberts, Neil Woodford at Invesco Perpetual – that's actually four, rather than five.
Charlie:
So in terms of who's going to make the most money, I think Giles Hargreave is ...
David:
More so than Neil Woodford?
Charlie:
Well, Neil's doing a very good job, a specific thing, which is running a relatively well-balanced, low-risk portfolio of UK companies, an excellent investment, but if you're just going to say, who's going to make the most hard cash, Giles Hargreave has had an incredible record, over 15, 20 years, of just having an amazing ability to find really small companies, and then turn them around into huge profits, so I guess he would be my pick. If we're both here in four years' time, then you can ... as the legal writs are landing on my desk!
David:
No, no – I was just asking for your personal opinion. So you think that smaller companies would do better than high income?
Charlie:
They always have. I mean, smaller companies have always outperformed over the long term. I mean, it's almost a sort of truism, but small and medium-sized companies, over the very long term, and they've got a solid manager, always outperform – of course they do, because they're growth companies. What Neil is trying to do is something very very sensible, and I think for a lot of people, if you're anything like me, you think investing in any shares is pretty risky, Neil had an incredible record of being consistent, of sticking to his knitting, of communicating well with his investors what he's doing, and just being consistently defensive in what he owns, owning things where he has a real understanding about how they're going to keep paying him dividends, a bit more every year, things like tobacco and pharmaceuticals and so on. He's not scared of taking really big bets sometimes, but he does kind of look for that consistent ability to keep the money coming in, and for a lot of people, that is exactly what you want.
David:
And do you think he's right to actually shun oil shares? Because that was one of the big things that he did. He said that 'I would rather back pharmaceuticals than oil shares', and he wouldn't back BP (LSE: BP) and Shell (LSE: RDSB), but he would in fact back GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK) and AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN).
Charlie:
Yeah, and he dumped BP and Shell, he dumped them right before the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, so a lot of people said, oh, wasn't he clever? Obviously, he didn't have a clue that it was going to happen, when it actually came to it. To be honest, I think that was a slightly radical move, and there's some people who work around Neil who also run funds who often, I guess, kind of express Neil's view, but in a more moderated way – they didn't dump all of their oil majors, and I think ultimately they've been validated in that decision. He certainly thinks the economy is going to be on its knees for a very long time, and that means it's going to be really tough to keep the oil price high. I personally think the world's a bit more complicated than that. Unfortunately, for us here in Britain, the oil price can be spectacularly high, even when our economy is in the gutter, so I think it's a bit more complicated than that. But he hasn't cost his investors a huge amount of money, because he's still got a well-diversified portfolio, and he's tapped into really strong dividend streams.
David:
Okay, now you say that the western economy, or the UK economy, is in the doldrums right now, and you have been in the Far East not that long ago. What was your feeling about investing in the Far East? Is it a bull market in Asia?
Charlie:
Yeah, it's a bull market for growth. There is no doubt that China continues to grow at a really strong rate. A lot of other parts of south-east Asia are continuing to grow at an incredible rate. There are issues and problems, and huge changes that have to take place in those economies, and I think investors who are looking for an easy, quick buck are going to find that it's possible for an economy to grow really fast for a long time, and you to make no money – that is possible.
David:
Why is that?
Charlie:
Because the relationship between share prices and economic growth is not perfect. It's there, but it's not perfect. It doesn't necessarily happen at the same time – sometimes it happens before, sometimes it happens after you see the economic growth, because it's all about sentiment as well as being about actually what's happening on the ground. It's about expectations of what are going to be delivered. China's shares can fall 20%, because a company grows at 10%, when they thought it would grow at 15. Now, you could say, well that's crazy – I'll take 10%, but well, I thought it was 15. So there's all this noise and all this stuff going on, and what it does is, it kind of clouds, it mists up the relationship between economic growth and share price growth. But if you're willing to stick it out for the long term, the evidence suggests that there is a relationship there, that ultimately you will be rewarded for growing economies, and there is no doubt that these parts of the world are going to carry on growing.
David:
So as somebody who has his finger on the pulse of wealth management, Charlie, you rub shoulders with a lot of wealthy people, where do you think private investors should be putting their money now, if they want to be wealthy, maybe in five or 10 years' time?
Charlie:
If they want to be wealthy?
David:
Yes.
Charlie:
So you're saying, they've got no money now, and they want to be wealthy?
David:
No, they have some money now ...
Charlie:
If I knew that!
David:
In other words, where do you think people should be investing their money now?
Charlie:
Where should we be investing our money now? I think it's really really hard to be putting much money into all but a few pockets of bonds and fixed income. There are some pockets to invest in that still look attractive, like there's some high yield areas, and some areas in the emerging market debt, but not necessarily generically-emerging market debt.
David:
You still prefer sovereign bonds?
Charlie:
No, sorry, I was saying that I think that you don't want to have your money in sovereign bonds, but there are some pockets within what we call fixed income, that the whole bond market as a whole, where there are still some opportunities – US high-yield, some areas of emerging market debt. So you want a fund manager who has the flexibility on a sort of a global, strategic basis, to pick on those little opportunities. You don't want to invest in a bond fund where someone is sort of honour-bound to bung 30% in US treasuries, and 30% in gilts, which a lot of them area. You've got to be quite clever in your sort of selections there, and the same goes for emerging market debt. When it comes to shares, I do still have this sense that there are some really good value companies in Europe, and if you've got the courage to sort of go through the fire of the next few years, then you've got to be rewarded. There are European value manager in the UK, some people who are really good at picking lowly-valued European stocks, and I think that, if you've got the courage for it, I think of people like John Bennett at Henderson, if you've got the courage to put your money with some of these guys, and sit on it for a few years, I think you could be really surprised actually, about the fact that there are some incredibly strong companies in Europe. We love to deride the French and the Spanish and the Italians and all that sort of stuff.
David:
Well, you do – nobody else does!
Charlie:
Well, there's one or two other Brits who don't mind having a pop, but people love to make comments about these economies being in the doldrums, but there are some pretty strong companies in these places, on incredibly low valuations. I would like that on a five-year view, but you've got to go through the fire on the way there.
David:
So you're saying it's going to be tough for the next five years?
Charlie:
Well, I don't know if it'll be one year, two years, three years – I have no idea, because it's all dependent on all what happens in the politics of the thing. At the moment, people are not going to give good companies in Europe the valuation they deserve. That may still be the case in a year's time, it may still be the case in two years' time, but ultimately Europe's not disappearing – it's still a big chunk of the developed world, and if you own, for example, the French telecom company, people in France are still going to need mobile phones in five years' time. So if you can get it at the right price now, then I think ultimately there could be some real rewards. I trust some of the fund managers in that area, Richard Pease is another one -
David:
What about Mark Slater – what do you think about Mark Slater? Is he doing well?
Charlie:
Mark Slater's not really European.
David:
No, I know he's not European – I mean, he's more UK, yes.
Charlie:
Yeah, Mark's had a good record at picking some really interesting companies. He picked the Peppa Pig the company, which, I've got a four-year-old and a two-year-old, and you only have to watch the way they watch that to say, this company has, there's sort of some magic to this. They've got hold of something with that cartoon, and he picked that company and rode it all the way through. He's a good stock picker, he's got some good ideas, a bit like Giles Hargreave – I think he's the sort of guy who, over the very long term, he can make you a lot of money. There's all sorts of risks along the way – there will be a lot of volatility along the way. These are small emerging companies. It's not a sort of safe bet.
David:
So what you're saying to investors is just tighten your seatbelts, because it's going to be a very bumpy ride – is that it?
Charlie:
It's going to be really tough. As I said earlier, there is a weight pushing down on share prices, and it is the fact that all over the western world, people are trying to pay off their debts, and it's really hard to grow when people are paying off their debts. It's hard for countries, it's hard for your own household – it's hard to do the house up, while you're paying off your credit card, and that is what is happening all over the western world, and that is all pushing share prices down. But ultimately, if you can buy good-value companies, and if you've got the courage to go to the eye of the storm, and places like Europe with the right fund managers, then I see no reason to believe that, in a few years' time, you won't be sitting pretty.
David:
But some people might say that we're actually paying the price for the 10 years of boom during the 1990s?
Charlie:
Yeah, we sort of made pretend growth, didn't we? We made growth that wasn't really there, and now we've suddenly realised that it's not there.
David:
Except Gordon Brown said it was real growth.
Charlie:
Well, Gordon Brown is sitting up in his sort of Scottish stone brick house, mulling over that very point now, I'm sure, drinking his Horlicks.
David:
And he also said we wouldn't have boom and bust, didn't he?
Charlie:
Apparently he's a happier guy now – he's going for lots of runs, I'm told. He's running every day, and he's feeling healthier and happy, so people should be pleased about that.
David:
Okay, so thank you ever so much for coming in today, Charlie.
Charlie:
Thank you, David.
David:
I have a couple more chores to perform before we can turn the mikes off. The first one is to sum up today's podcast with a quote, and the quote aptly is a German proverb which says, “Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is”.
Charlie:
Everyone should definitely bear that in mind for the rest of the day, and apply it to whatever situation they're in.
David:
Don't be afraid of the big, bad wolf! The second chore is to let you all know that you can follow me on Twitter, @TheKuoKnows. Have you got a Twitter address, Charlie, that you want to plug?
Charlie:
Yeah, @CitywireCharlie
David:
There you go, @CitywireCharlie, and @TheKuoKnows. So thank you very much once again, Charlie, for coming in today.
Charlie:
Thank you.
David:
This has been Money Talk, I have been David Kuo, and my guest has been the one and only Charlie Parker from Citywire. If you want to find out more about what is going on in the world of investing, you can sign up for the Collective by going to fool.co.uk/thecollective, and until next week, have a great week, everybody.
David Kuo challenged his Motley Fool analysts to pinpoint the attractive sectors of 2012 -- and they delivered! Discover the industries they selected in this new Motley Fool guide -- "Top Sectors Of 2012" -- while it's still free!
Further investment opportunities with David Kuo:
> David owns shares in BP, Shell and GlaxoSmithKline, but no other companies mentioned in this article.
