Crypto, ETFs are ‘gambling’, online investing icon says

Lord Peter Cruddas of Shoreditch is a billionaire, a member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom, a Brexiteer and a pioneer of online investing.

The founder and chief executive of London stock exchange-listed trading platform CMC Markets believes do-it-yourself investment has hit “rock bottom”.

“If somebody [were] to sit down and write a business plan to create my company CMC Markets from scratch today, the business plan wouldn’t hold up,” Cruddas told Markets with Madison while he was visiting clients in Auckland.

The commission-free structure of trading platforms like CMC relied on trading volume to survive, he said.

“The only way you can really make money out of this industry now is through scale.”

Talking about the GameStop saga, Cruddas said it was a “disaster” and tantamount to “gambling”.

He put cryptocurrency in the gambling box too.

“You have to separate some things out from investing and gambling.”

On the popularised ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing method, AKA ethical investment, he said it’s a “lifestyle choice”, not a means to make money.

“I’m not some fuzzy politician that’s just trying to say the right thing at the right time to the right people. This is the real world.”

Watch Cruddas’ unfiltered investment views - including what index he’d go long on right now - in today’s episode of Markets with Madison above.

Get investment insights from the experts on Markets with Madison every Monday and Friday on the NZ Herald.

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Madison Reidy is the host of New Zealand’s only financial markets show, Markets with Madison. She joined the Herald in 2022 after working in investment, and has covered business and economics for television and radio broadcasters.