On The Road: Italy - Episode 1 | Real Vision™

A brand new Real Vision series 'On the Road' where Grant Williams travels to Italy to visit Steve Diggle, Founder of Vulpes Investment Management. The two take a trip to Florence, Siena and Cortona in search of a better understanding of the current problems facing the country. Watch the first 3 binge-worthy episodes only on Real Vision.
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On The Road: Italy - Episode 1 | Real Vision™
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Transcript:
STEVE DIGGLE: Hello?
GRANT WILLIAMS: Steve, it's Grant. How are you, mate?
STEVE DIGGLE: I'm really well, Grant. How are you doing?
GRANT WILLIAMS: Not too bad. Listen, I'm trying to get my head around what's happening in Italy. Now I know you spend a lot of time there. What's the story?
STEVE DIGGLE: Ah, well, I think it's really important. And I think it's a lot more complex than you might imagine from reading the newspapers. I think it's about a lot more than just contemporary politics. I think it's about Italian culture, I think it's about Italian identity, and I think it's a lot about history.
GRANT WILLIAMS: Eh, what are we talking here?
STEVE DIGGLE: Well, at least a couple of thousand years, I'd say. But hey, what you should do is you should actually come over here and have a look for yourself. I'm going to be in Italy next week. Why don't you get on a plane, and I'll show you around. And then you'll see what you make of it, and you can draw your own conclusions.
GRANT WILLIAMS: With every passing day, the world of finance seemingly becomes more complex and harder to figure out. Financial information is distilled into soundbites for an increasingly time-poor audience, when more than ever before, a deeper, less superficial understanding of the many factors affecting the global economy is required in order to fully understand both the risks and opportunities.
In this series, my goal is to travel with people whose understanding of a set of financial situations dwarfs my own, and to take the time needed to dig beneath the headlines and improve my knowledge of both the situations in question and the investment implications that surround them. And the best way I know of doing that properly is by going on the road.
Italy is a spectacular country, rich in history and culture. But its economy is struggling, and its place at the heart of the European Union is under threat. Between the current populist uprising and the country's fragile banking system, that threat suddenly looks very real.
To try and get a better understanding of the situation, I've traveled to the home of my friend Steve Diggle, founder of Vulpes Investment Management, so he can help me understand the history and the investment implications behind the situation unfolding here.
This is such a beautiful part of the world you've found for yourself here. I mean, it's spectacular. There is so much going on in this part of the world right now. And it feels as though it, again, has reached some kind of tipping point.
STEVE DIGGLE: I think what's happening in Italy is probably not widely understood. It's a complicated story. It comes directly out of a lot of history. And this is something you and I have talked about a lot, which is that the short-termism in markets means that people very often ignore these very long-term historical situations.
You know, I've always been fascinated by history. And a lot of what I have done in my career as both an investor and a trader is look at these long-term patterns, much deeper, longer-term context than what's happening in the next 30 seconds, what's the euro going to be tomorrow, where is the S&P going to be in three weeks' time. I mean, that's important from a trading perspective. But unless you really understand where something has come from, which means you really have to look at its long-term history, you really can't understand what's going on.