1:00-3:00pm
Ethics Program: A Practical Application of CFP Board’s Code and Standards
Speaker: Bill Schretter
A live ethics course to fulfill 2 hours of the continuing education requirement. The ethics requirement demonstrates to the public that certificants have agreed to provide personal financial planning in the client’s best interest and to act in accordance with the highest ethical and professional standards for the practice of financial planning.
3:30-5:00pm | POLARIS BALLROOM
Keynote:
Speaker: Andy Fastow
We live in the Age of Corporate Disasters. From Enron to BP, AIG, J&J, 3M, General Electric, Boeing, Credit Suisse, and Silicon Valley Bank, to name a few — seemingly great and iconic companies that have been harmed or destroyed by self-inflicted wounds. What has changed? Are we worse at compliance? Are we less ethical? Has corporate culture changed significantly? The leaders of these organizations did not set out to do harm. Their challenges arose from an inability to lead their teams through and to the right decisions in what we call the Gray Zone — that place where creative application of complex and ambiguous rules allows us to get to a technically correct answer that may be the wrong solution. The Gray Zone is where leadership is needed most, but where leaders have the least amount of training.
5:00-6:00pm
Welcome Reception
8:00-9:10am
Keynote: Using Trusts As IRA Beneficiaries
Speaker: Jeff Levine
The U.S. retirement market is roughly $30 trillion, and more than half of those assets are held in IRAs and similar defined contribution plans. Much of that wealth rests in the hands of an aging Baby Boomer generation, and financial advisors will play a critical role in passing these assets along to clients’ beneficiaries as intended, and as tax efficiently as possible. Sometimes, that may require using a trust as an IRA beneficiary. But while these tools can be incredibly effective at protecting and preserving wealth, they can also add considerable cost and complexity to a plan. In this session, attendees will learn about some of the biggest pros and cons of leaving an IRA to a trust, as well as the critical IRA trust rules they must know in order to properly guide clients.
9:20-10:20am
Morning Breakout Sessions
9:20-10:20am
Morning Breakout Session 1: Estate Planning for the Merely Affluent
Speaker: Jeff Levine
In recent years, the rise of the Federal estate tax exemption has dramatically reduced the scope of “traditional” estate planning. Nevertheless, financial advisors can continue to provide an extraordinary amount of value in the overall estate planning process. In this session, we’ll explore the paradigm shift in end-of-life tax planning, which has changed the focus from estate tax minimization, to basis management and planning to minimize income tax liability. We’ll also explore how the rise of the digital world has created a new wrinkle for estate planning: how to effectively transition “digital” assets, which may include assets with a monetary value, as well as assets with “just” personal or sentimental value, such as social media profiles and digital photos, and online subscriptions.
Breakout 1: Private Real Assets, Overview and Outlook
Speaker: Casey Frazier
This presentation outlines three areas of potential investment in private real assets – infrastructure, farmland, and timberland. The presentation defines these asset classes, discusses their drivers of historical returns, reviews their historical risk and return characteristics relative to more traditional investments, provides specific examples of each type of investment, and discusses the potential roles real assets can serve in multi-asset portfolios, including as an inflation hedge or diversifying investment. After defining the asset classes, the presentation highlights some of the long-term secular tailwinds in infrastructure, farmland, and timberland investing along with current macro themes and trends in these asset classes.
10:45am-12:00pm
Keynote: What’s Trending? Potential Pitfalls of Investment Fads
Speaker: Marlena Lee
In this session, Marlena Lee, Global Head of Investment Solutions at Dimensional Fund Advisors, will discuss how investment fads (like style fads) come and go over time, but a philosophy rooted in financial science can provide an investment experience that will better stand the test of time.
1:15-2:25pm
Keynote: Finding Opportunity in a Soft Economy: A Guide to the Markets
Speaker: Dr. David Kelly
In the summer of 2023, markets remain focused on the macro environment, finding comfort in lower inflation but concerned about increased recession risks from tighter monetary and fiscal policy and lingering turmoil in the banking industry. The Fed has mostly maintained its hawkish messaging, but appears near the end of its rate hiking cycle. For investors, it is also important to look beyond the cycle, as this year’s global reset in valuations presents a much broader
menu of investment opportunities than existed at the start of 2022. Using slides from the Guide to the Markets, Dr. David Kelly will shine some light on these issues and their investment implications.
2:35-3:35pm
Afternoon Breakout Sessions
Afternoon Breakout 1 : Becoming the Preeminent Financial Influencer in Your Clients’ Lives
Speaker: Jay Mooreland
There are many influencers in life, from athletic icons to social media influencers. Financial advisors need to transcend the perspective of being just an investment advisor and become their clients’ greatest financial influencer by consistently incorporating psychological principles and behavioral coaching in their practices. This presentation will discuss the science of influence – what makes someone and their message influential, admirable, and desirable to follow. We will then discuss how investor behavior can be anticipated under various financial environments and specific tactics that can help investors remain rational. One of those tactics is to create and incorporate a simple, formal, and effective decision-making process that clients can follow.
Afternoon Breakout 2: It’s a (R)evolution: the Modern Investor, Value, Growth
Speaker: Jackie Wilke
The financial services industry and modern investor are constantly evolving, disrupting the value of the financial professional and opportunities for growth (i.e. women and next-gen investors). In response, future-focused professionals are embracing the Financial Professional 2.0. Among other shifts, they’re leaning into the human-to-human advantage, doing more than managing money and are highly relevant to a defined audience.
4:00-5:05pm | POLARIS BALLROOM
Keynote: Real Financial Planning: Defenders vs. Guides
Speaker: Carl Richards
Purpose vs. Goals, Precision vs. Persistence, Facts vs. Empathy, Plans vs. Planning. In this session, financial advisors will gain greater awareness into what it means to deliver a behaviorally-informed financial planning process. Specifically, the session elaborates on the idea that financial planners are not defenders of an outdated map but are guides in an ever-changing landscape. To that end, advisors will learn specific phrasing for working with clients. They will gain insight into client emotions and how emotions can, if we are guides, positively impact the advisor-client relationship. And perhaps most important, advisors will be challenged to adopt a process where we normalize, with clients, the search for disconfirming evidence and begin to see financial plans as just strong opinions… held loosely, placing the power of the work between advisors and clients into course corrections and relationships.