John "Edward" Horner Chancellor (born December 1962), is a British financial historian, finance journalist, and former investment strategist. In 2016, the ''
Financial Analysts Journal
The ''Financial Analysts Journal'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering investment management, published by Routledge on behalf of the CFA Institute. It was established in 1945 and , the editor-in-chief is William N. Goetzmann.
...
'' called him "one of the great financial writers of our era",
[ and in 2022, '']Fortune
Fortune may refer to:
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* Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck
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* Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling
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* ''The Fortune'' (1931 film) ...
'' called him "one of the greatest financial historians alive".[ Chancellor is noted for his prescient warnings of the last three major ]economic bubble
An economic bubble (also called a speculative bubble or a financial bubble) is a period when current asset prices greatly exceed their intrinsic valuation, being the valuation that the underlying long-term fundamentals justify. Bubbles can be c ...
s in his published works: ''Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation'' (1999, the dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
), ''Crunch-Time for Credit?'' (2005, the credit bubble
An economic bubble (also called a speculative bubble or a financial bubble) is a period when current asset prices greatly exceed their intrinsic valuation, being the valuation that the underlying long-term fundamentals justify. Bubbles can be c ...
), and ''The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest'' (2022, the everything bubble
The expression "everything bubble" refers to the correlated impact of monetary easing by the Federal Reserve (and followed by the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan) on asset prices in most asset classes, namely equities, housing, bonds ...
).[
]
Early life and education
Chancellor was born in Richmond
Richmond most often refers to:
* Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States
* Richmond, London, a part of London
* Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England
* Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada
* Richmond, California, ...
, England to barrister John Paget Chancellor (the editor of ''Knowledge
Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
''), the eldest son of Sir Christopher Chancellor
Sir Christopher John Howard Chancellor (29 March 1904 – 9 September 1989) was a British journalist and administrator who was general manager of the news agency Reuters from 1944 to 1959. ''The Daily Telegraph'' credited him for keeping the compa ...
and Mary Jolliffe, who was the daughter of Lord Hylton. The Chancellor family were Scottish gentry who owned land at Quothquan
Quothquan (also formerly spelled Couth-Boan, meaning "the beautiful hill"; gd, A’ Choitcheann, pronounced , meaning "the common") is a village in Libberton parish, South Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is northwest of Biggar, and southeast of La ...
since 1432. His sister is the actress Anna Chancellor
Anna Theodora Chancellor (born 27 April 1965) is a British actress who has received nominations for BAFTA and Olivier Awards.
Background and early life
Chancellor was born in Richmond, England to barrister John Paget Chancellor, eldest son of ...
.
He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...
with first class honors in Modern History, and later from St Antony's College, Oxford
St Antony's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1950 as the result of the gift of French merchant Sir Antonin Besse of Aden, St Antony's specialises in international relations, economic ...
with a Masters of Philosophy in Modern History.
Investment career
After graduation, Chancellor worked for the investment bank Lazard Brothers
Lazard Ltd (formerly known as Lazard Frères & Co.) is a financial advisory and asset management firm that engages in investment banking, asset management and other financial services, primarily with institutional clients. It is the world's la ...
in mergers & acquisitions from the early 1990s, and from 2008 to 2014, he was a senior member of the asset allocation team, and of the capital markets research team, at the Boston investment firm Grantham, Mayo, van Otterloo & Co. (GMO).
Writing career
Author
In 1999, Chancellor published ''Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation'', which made the long-list of the New York Times Notable Book of the Year
''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...
. Martin Vander Weyer
Martin Vander Weyer is a British financial journalist, business editor of ''The Spectator'', and a member of the British-American Project.
A Yorkshireman (he lives in Thirsk and Malton) of Flemish ancestry, he is the son of Derek Vander Weyer, who ...
in the ''Spectator
''Spectator'' or ''The Spectator'' may refer to:
*Spectator sport, a sport that is characterized by the presence of spectators, or watchers, at its matches
*Audience
Publications Canada
* ''The Hamilton Spectator'', a Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, ...
'' called the book a much more entertaining version of Charles P. Kindleberger
Charles Poor Kindleberger (October 12, 1910 – July 7, 2003) was an American economic historian and author of over 30 books. His 1978 book ''Manias, Panics, and Crashes'', about speculative stock market bubbles, was reprinted in 2000 after the ...
's 1978 work ''Manias, Panics and Crashes''.
In 2022, William J. Bernstein
William J. Bernstein (born 1948) is an American financial theorist and neurologist. His research is in the field of modern portfolio theory and he has published books for individual investors who wish to manage their own equity portfolios. He live ...
said of the book, "More than 20 years ago, Edward Chancellor's ''Devil Take the Hindmost'' supplied readers with one of the most engaging and incisive descriptions of financial manias ever written". Bernstein added, "Besides being a first-rate economic historian, Chancellor is also a master wordsmith; almost unique among serious finance books".[
In 2005, he published ''Crunch Time for Credit?'', an analysis of the credit boom in the United States and the United Kingdom.] The book came from a 2005 report Chancellor wrote for British hedge fund manager Crispin Odey
Robin Crispin William Odey (born January 1959)O'Hannelly, Padraig"Investment Greats: Crispin Odey" Motley Fool, 2 October 2009. Retrieved 13 June 2012. is a London-based hedge fund manager and the founding partner of Odey Asset Management. In A ...
on the growing housing and credit bubble.[ In 2009, Charles Moore wrote of the book, "Chancellor foresaw almost everything. His report listed the common features of the US and British credit booms, including 'a shared belief in the new paradigm and the ability of central bankers to save the day', 'low-income growth yet also strong growth in consumer spending, largely fuelled by home equity withdrawal' and 'rising government deficits.'"]
In 2022, he published ''The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest'', which criticized the orthodox central banking policy of continually lowering interest rates, and using perpetual quantitative easing
Quantitative easing (QE) is a monetary policy action whereby a central bank purchases predetermined amounts of government bonds or other financial assets in order to stimulate economic activity. Quantitative easing is a novel form of monetary pol ...
, to generate economic growth via asset price inflation. A policy that Chancellor predicted had resulted in an everything bubble
The expression "everything bubble" refers to the correlated impact of monetary easing by the Federal Reserve (and followed by the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan) on asset prices in most asset classes, namely equities, housing, bonds ...
in asset prices, extreme wealth inequality
The distribution of wealth is a comparison of the wealth of various members or groups in a society. It shows one aspect of economic inequality or economic heterogeneity.
The distribution of wealth differs from the income distribution in that ...
(particularly between the generations), and that would end in very high levels of price inflation
In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reductio ...
.[
'']Martin Wolf
Martin Harry Wolf (born 16 August 1946 in London) is a British journalist of Austrian-Dutch descent who focuses on economics. He is the associate editor and chief economics commentator at the ''Financial Times''.
Early life
Wolf was born in ...
'' in the ''Financial Times'' described the book as "a polemic against everything enBernanke stands for" when reviewing it alongside former Fed chair Ben Bernanke
Ben Shalom Bernanke ( ; born December 13, 1953) is an American economist who served as the 14th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. After leaving the Fed, he was appointed a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution. Durin ...
's own 2022 book, ''21st Century Monetary Policy''. Martin Vander Weyer praised the book describing it as a more engaging read on the subject area than Thomas Piketty
Thomas Piketty (; born 7 May 1971) is a French economist who is Professor of Economics at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Associate Chair at the Paris School of Economics and Centennial Professor of Economics in the Int ...
's Capital in the Twenty-First Century
''Capital in the Twenty-First Century'' (french: Le Capital au XXIe siècle) is a book written by French economist Thomas Piketty. It focuses on wealth and income inequality in Europe and the United States since the 18th century. It was initially ...
.[ Emma Duncan in the '']Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
'' praised the book and said Chancellor had a "gift for timing", as his two earlier books had forewarned of bubbles in speculation – the dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
, and the credit bubble
An economic bubble (also called a speculative bubble or a financial bubble) is a period when current asset prices greatly exceed their intrinsic valuation, being the valuation that the underlying long-term fundamentals justify. Bubbles can be c ...
– that eventually burst. Finance author Felix Martin called the book a "timely warning" of central bank folly, and given the prescient nature of Chancellor's previous two books, said that as well as buying the book, investors should "sell all your stocks".[ In August 2022, the book was added to the list for the ]Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award
''Financial Times'' Business Book of the Year Award is an annual award given to the best business book of the year as determined by the ''Financial Times''. It aims to find the book that has 'the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern ...
for 2022.
Journalist
During and after his period as a full-time investment manager, Chancellor has also provided opinion pieces and articles for the ''Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was estab ...
'' financial commentary website ''Breakingviews'', and the ''Institutional Investor
An institutional investor is an entity which pools money to purchase securities, real property, and other investment assets or originate loans. Institutional investors include commercial banks, central banks, credit unions, government-linked co ...
''.[ He has also contributed opinion pieces to other financial publications, including the '']Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', ''MoneyWeek
''MoneyWeek'' is a British weekly investment magazine that covers financial and economic news and provides commentary and analysis across the UK and global markets. ''MoneyWeek'' is edited in London.
It is owned by MoneyWeek Limited, which is no ...
'', the ''New York Review of Books
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
'', and the ''Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...
''.
In 2008, Chancellor was announced as the winner of the 2007 George Polk Award
The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the award ...
in Financial Reporting for his 2007 article ''Ponzi Nation'' that he wrote for ''Institutional Investor''.[ His citation noted that Chancellor had "warned months before the market decline that excessive risk-taking and interconnected investments – fueled by subprime mortgages and the activities of lightly regulated hedge funds – could cause calamity for world economies".] He was the first-ever writer for ''Institutional Investor'' to win a George Polk Award.[
During the run-up to the 2016 ]Brexit referendum
The United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, took place on 23 June 2016 in the United Kingdom (UK) and Gibraltar to ask the electorate whether the country shoul ...
, Chancellor wrote in his columns about why he had decided to vote to leave saying that the "European project has morphed from Kant's ideal of an international federation into something akin to the late Habsburg Empire".
Awards
* 2007 George Polk Award – Financial Reporting, for his ''Ponzi Nation'' article in ''Institutional Investor''.[
]
Notable works
As author
*[
*][
*]
As editor
Chancellor edited two anthologies of investment reports from Marathon Asset Management
Marathon Asset Management, LP is an investment manager focused on opportunistic investing in credit and fixed income markets globally. Marathon manages a family of investment programs principally focused on credit strategies including hedge funds, ...
:
*
*
As journalist
*, for which Chancellor won the 2007 George Polk Award in Financial Reporting.[
*
]
See also
*Asquith family
The Asquiths were originally a middle-class family from the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. They were members of the Congregational church, whose family name derived from the village of Askwith. The first prominent member of the family was H. ...
*Everything bubble
The expression "everything bubble" refers to the correlated impact of monetary easing by the Federal Reserve (and followed by the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan) on asset prices in most asset classes, namely equities, housing, bonds ...
*Greenspan put
The Greenspan put was a monetary policy response to financial crises that Alan Greenspan, former chair of the Federal Reserve, exercised beginning with the crash of 1987. Successful in addressing various crises, it became controversial as it le ...
References
External links
Edward Chancellor: Asset Allocation Insights
''Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha is a crowd-sourced content service for financial markets. Articles and research covers a broad range of stocks, asset classes, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and investment strategies. Unlike other equity research platforms, insight ...
'' (2009)
Edward Chancellor: History of the Gold Standard
C-SPAN
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...
(2012)
Edward Chancellor: 'intelligent contrarians' should follow the capital cycle
Merryn Somerset Webb
Merryn Rosemary Somerset Webb (born 23 June 1970), is a Senior Columnist at ''Bloomberg L.P., Bloomberg'' writing about wealth, investing and personal finance and is a radio and television commentator on financial matters.
Life and career
She ...
''MoneyWeek
''MoneyWeek'' is a British weekly investment magazine that covers financial and economic news and provides commentary and analysis across the UK and global markets. ''MoneyWeek'' is edited in London.
It is owned by MoneyWeek Limited, which is no ...
'' (2015)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chancellor, Edward
1962 births
Living people
People from Richmond, London
Asquith family
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Alumni of St Antony's College, Oxford
English financial analysts
English investment bankers
English money managers
Economic historians
Historians of economic thought
English male journalists
English financial writers
British business and financial journalists
English columnists
English essayists
21st-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
English male non-fiction writers
Reuters people
George Polk Award recipients
Monetary reformers