CFP^®; CIMA^®, CPWA^®, CIMC^®, and RMA℠ Eligible

Duration: 1 hour and 15 minutes

Option 1: Wednesday, February 10^th at 9:00am ET

Option 2: Monday, March 22^nd at 3:00pm ET

This session will include participant Q&A.

Course Description

In 2021, finance professionals face a time of uncertainty on economic, financial, public health, and geopolitical fronts. This uncertainty follows on the past two decades of frequent bouts of volatility in both economies and asset markets worldwide. We witnessed the hype of the dot.com bubble and its subsequent bursting, leading to a global recession. The global economy and asset markets then boomed along with the debt-fueled global real estate bubble. The bursting of that speculative bubble caused both a worldwide stock market crash and “Great Recession.” Investors who did not panic gained from a strong recovery in global asset markets starting in March 2009. Many real and financial assets both in the US and abroad reached record-high prices in February 2020. The high valuations led many to fear significant market risks, for example from a possible further global economic slowdown or a trade war with China.

The risk that was not anticipated was public health. The pandemic led to a sudden drop of the stock market, declining by 34% from its peak to its trough in March 2020. The economy moved from its record-long economic growth phase to a short economic depression; for example, a net of over 20 million US jobs were lost in April.   Massive government intervention, with record expansionary fiscal and monetary policy, restored economic growth by May. The massive monetary and liquidity expansion by the FED and its creation of near-zero interest rates, fueled a rapid rebound of the stock market and it reached new highs within months. Economic growth surged in summer 2020.  Economic growth continued, but it decelerated in autumn and winter as new cases of COVID infection surged. We will examine the recent past while also analyzing longer-term trends in the economy and financial markets, all with an eye to understanding possible future trends and scenarios.

This session will separate fact from fiction while analyzing the implications of global linkages for investors. The uncertainty regarding the pandemic, the U.S. and global economies, commodity prices, interest rates, exchange rates, job markets, monetary policy, and the sustainability of massively-increasing government debt worldwide all point toward the need for a truly global diversification strategy. This session will feature a strategic look at the economic, financial, and demographic trends that are likely to endure in the crucial nations of the future.

Learning Objectives:

• Help financial professionals analyze the US and global economic outlook and longer-term economic trends in this time of uncertainty.
• Increase participants’ understanding of global and US financial trends and linkages to the volatile economic and policy environment we have experienced in recent decades and especially recent years.
• Portray and contrast global and U.S. demographic trends, analyzing their investment implications.
• The ultimate objective of this core session is to help participants form global investing strategies based on the three preceding objectives.