Tuesday, April 24

9:15–10:15 AM                  
Concurrent Workshops, Round 1

9:15–10:15 AM
Workshop #1: Running Your Business like a Business
Michael Silver, Focus Partners

A strong team structure is central to running an effective and efficient wealth management practice. This session will provide the foundation for your team to establish definitive roles and responsibilities, accountability, and aligned compensation structures. It will give you the basis to begin to start running your business, like a business.

Workshop #2: Outlook 2012: Is it Time to Buy or Bail?
Sam Stovall, MBA, CFP^®, S&P Capital IQ

A half-speed economic growth projection for the United States is being threatened by an expected recession in Europe and the prospects for at least a soft economic landing in China. Will S&P 500 earnings rise 8 percent in 2012, as currently estimated, allowing the market to catch a second wind in the fourth year of this bull market, or is a lack-luster third year of the presidential cycle foreboding of a fall in year four?

Workshop #3: Goals-Based Planning–Orchestrating the Music of Your Client’s Lives
David Loeper, CIMA^®, CIMC^®, Financeware, Inc.

Advisors often try to manage or eliminate clients’ sometimes suboptimal emotional responses that can have potentially disastrous consequences. Yet we know that most meaningful decisions in our lives are driven by emotion, so is our attempt to squelch emotions misplaced? Are we using what we have learned from behavioral finance to better counsel clients to make better choices? Rather than discussing cold, hard, mathematical facts as they relate to goals-based advice, Mr. Loeper discusses how advisors can become more valuable to clients by incorporating a client’s deepest emotions into the advice an advisor gives. He will show how the psychology of using emotions to manage client expectations not only gives profound meaning to your career, but also can transform a financial advisor or investment consultant into the maestro of the music in your clients’ lives.

Workshop #4: Commodities: Better Understand the Risks and Benefits of Investing in Commodities

Mark Nodelman, CFA^®, MBA, Highbridge Capital Management, LLC
Interest in commodity investing is growing rapidly. But, many investors just now are getting exposure to commodities. Do they understand the nuances of commodity investing, the terminology, and the volatility? What is the best way to access the commodity markets? Should investors look at passive strategies? Active vehicles? Commodity trading advisors or mutual funds? How do you use commodities when constructing a portfolio? Join us as we examine these and other important issues that all commodity investors should understand today.

Workshop #5: Benchmarking Your Defined Contribution Plan
Thomas Kmak, Fiduciary Benchmarks

ERISA requires plan sponsors to ensure that fees paid to service providers are reasonable. Because many different fee structures exist, determining what is reasonable is not an easy task. In addition, examining fees without examining value ignores the valuable services that advisors provide to clients. In fact, the Department of Labor clearly states in the preamble to ERISA section 408(b)(2) regulations that fiduciaries are expected to examine the services and fiduciary support they are receiving for their plan when determining the reasonableness of fees. This session will examine the proper way to benchmark a 401(k) plan including: how to build an apples-to-apples comparison group, where to obtain data needed to properly benchmark a 401(k) plan, how to examine fees being paid for a 401(k) plan, and what value components should be placed alongside such fees to make sure benchmarking analysis is comprehensive.

Workshop #6: The Global Debt Crisis and Its Impact on Retirement Strategies
Michael Jones, MBA, CFA^®, RiverFront Investment Group

Government debt levels in the United States, Japan, and much of Europe are at levels that historically have led to default. These historic defaults have been either explicit (e.g., Greece 2011, Argentina 2002) or through financial repression. Financial repression is a deliberate policy of holding interest rates below the rate of inflation for a decade or more (e.g., the United States in the 1940s and 1970s). These escalating risks in fixed income portfolios occur as baby boomers approach retirement and with investors complacent after a 30-year bull market in bonds. This session will explore the likely resolution of the developed economy debt crisis and propose a successful retirement strategy in light of these opportunities and risks.

10:45–11:45 AM
Workshop #7: Creating and Marketing Your PVP = Peerless Value PropositionTM (For Wholesalers Only)
Rob Shore, Shorespeak

What if all your clients see in you is another suit, carrying another briefcase, handing out another product brochure? If you are determined to improve your skills as a professional wholesaler you need to ask yourself the following question: “What are the really extraordinary wholesalers doing that sets them apart from all the rest?” Join Rob Shore from WholesalerMasterminds.com and I Carry the Bag magazine for this entertaining and interactive session. He’ll help you develop the critical skills that will allow you to build lasting relationships with your most-valued clients and highest-priority prospects and deliver critical investment consulting and advisory information they need to serve clients.

Workshop #8: Rules-Based Investing
Glenn Caldicott, CIMA^®, Merrill Lynch

This presentation will examine the Rules Based Investing^® models and include the following: eliminating emotion from the investment process, using proven sets of rules and not people, automated risk controls, precision allocation, active/passive diversification, and strategic/active with tactical/passive diversification (new age).

Workshop #9: Life Insurance as an Asset Class: Tax Advantage Fundamentals and Case Example Strategies for Using Insurance to Enhance and Support Your Client's Financial Planning
Vernon Holleman III, The Holleman Companies

This session will cover the tax and investment fundamentals of life insurance and related products (annuities, long-term care, and disability) that often are ill-perceived or forgotten. It also will demonstrate both new and old ideas for helping clients mitigate the risk inherit in life that these products cover. You will gain a better sense about how to discern carrier pricing and products while analyzing these tools as part of a comprehensive wealth management plan for your clients.

Workshop #10: Evaluating Alternative Managers and Strategies―An Institutional Consultant’s Perspective
Chris Cesare, MBA, Rocaton Investment Advisors, LLC

Alternatives due diligence requires a thorough understanding and evaluation of the complexities in a manager's investment strategy, coupled with comprehensive analysis of operational processes, business risk, investment vehicles, and governance structures. To achieve diversification benefits with alternatives, it is necessary to integrate forward-thinking strategy research, in-depth risk-factor analysis, and a holistic understanding of your client's risk and return objectives. Mr. Cesar will share the institutional consultant's process and experience.

Workshop #11: The Effect of Recent Market Action on Endowments and Foundations
John S. Griswold, Commonfund Institute

This presentation will take a detailed look at the impact of recent economic and market conditions on the asset allocation, spending policies, and investment strategies of foundations and endowments. Data will be presented showing how the allocations and other measures of behavior vary by size and type of institution. It includes an analysis of benchmarking data from studies conducted by Commonfund.

Workshop #12: Investor Attitudes and Actions in the Wake of the Financial Market Crisis
Sarah Holden, PhD, Investment Company Institute

The financial market crisis of 2008 and the “Great Recession” have changed many investors’ attitudes toward financial risk. This session will explore household survey results highlighting investors’ changed views with respect to risk and return and their changing patterns of equity ownership. Learn how households have adjusted savings rates, asset holdings and diversification, and planned retirement dates in response to the economic stresses. About half of mutual fund-owning households have ongoing relationships with financial advisors. This session also will review survey results highlighting that households engage financial advisors for a variety of reasons and at specific junctures in their lives.