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a speaker at an industry event

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Today I manned a booth at an industry event for Canadian investment brokerages. One of the speakers was a statistician who was famous for his accurate predictions and his work in enabling professional sports teams to improve their games. At the end of his speech, he fielded a few questions. When asked how he managed his investments, he remarked that he though the US stock markets were reaching a high, and that he was in a combination of cash and index funds. When asked about index investing, he cited the usual remarks that passive investors make about not being able to outguess the market on their own.

I'm not sure that these answers are what a room full of people who make a living managing investments for successful people like him expected or wanted to hear but I hope they took note. When the guy you're paying to speak at your event ignores your services, something might need some tuning. I hope they pull it off, and I hope that my employer's able to help them do so. Lord knows the anecdotal evidence shows this to be the case.

Otherwise, I think things will continue as they are for the investment management industry. I'm pursuing the same strategy as the speaker, and know that there are quite a few others who've decided on the same course for the remainder of our "investing lives".

It was fun manning the booth. We have a great story to tell, and this year we can talk about our rebranding, too. Good stuff.