All of us at City AM would like to give a heartfelt congratulations to personal finance guru Martin Lewis for his discovery of the stock market.
This newfound enthusiasm could even see him in the running for the City Champion gong at next year’s City AM Awards.
Lewis opened his ITV money show this week by announcing a “first”: he would be laying out how to invest in stocks.
“As a nation we underinvest, we’re risk averse and that carries its own risk,” Lewis told viewers.
“If you’ve put money in savings, even in the top paying savings accounts over the last decade they will have actually lost value.”
“So if you’re putting money away for the longer term and want more rapid growth, investing will often outperform savings.”
We could not agree more and applaud his candour in highlighting on his own show just how much better off people would have been – over time – if they’d shunned cash in favour of shares. Getting ordinary folk investing in stocks and shares is vital; it will make them much better off in the long-run, while simultaneously reducing the costs of capital for British businesses.
Martin Lewis is right, and we hope his viewers pay attention. Certainly it would be a real shame if, up until now, they had been listening to…Martin Lewis, who, for the past decade, has urged his followers to keep their savings in cash because “there’s a risk that you could lose some money” in stocks.
Lewis’s volte-face into supporting investment is, we hope, something permanent rather than ephemeral, something he is genuinely committed to encouraging, something he’ll support his many readers and viewers through in the same way he’s been encouraging them to sit on their cash for so many years.
Because if Lewis keeps banging this drum then, in the long-run, he will be making everyone richer and he will also be helping to grow the economy. Do not underestimate how much he is capable of single-handedly shifting the national conversation. He has the trust of the public and a hard-won platform from which to shout. So, Martin Lewis, here’s to a bold new chapter of stock market investing – for all of us.