FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
This is a guy that invented calculus.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
He laid out dominant scientific theories and consensus for centuries.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
He's Mr. Gravity.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
He's the laws of motion.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
He was even, incredibly, the master of the mint, which kind of meant that he oversaw coin production in England in the early 18th century.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
He's kind of a pseudo finance minister at the time.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
What a loser that guy was, really, you know.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
I mean, he dreamt of following in the future footsteps of Gillian Tett, I think.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
Okay, so turning to Isaac and his money, basically.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
Toby, clearly Isaac Newton was a brilliant person by any definition, one of the greatest people to ever have lived.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
Was he any good as an investor?
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
Yeah, I always thought of the South Sea Company as the OG meme stock.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
It'd be definitely something that people on Reddit would be all over if it existed today.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
Tell us a bit more about how Isaac Newton traded the South Sea Company then, Toby.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
Let's just pause for a second.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
I think we probably need to explain how we got that 1.2 billion pounds, the 300 million pounds, because obviously there are different ways of calculating what something was worth then and what it's worth now.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
So if you enter 20,000 pounds, which is what it held in South Sea shares in 1720 pounds, which is when the bubble was at its worst.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
Bank of England actually has a calculator you can put that in, and that works out to be around £3.6 million today, which is obviously a lot of money, but not some dynastic wealth, as we'd understand it.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
We think that actually underestimates how wealthy it is.
FT News Briefing
Introducing The Story of Money: They are history’s geniuses. But were they any good at investing?
The best way to do this is by adjusting relative to GDP, because it's wealth, right?