Schwab Impact 2015
Written by: Ryan Bouchey
Our firm just attended the annual Schwab Impact conference, held this year in Boston which made it extra special for me. My wife Nikki is originally from Boston and we met while in college at Bentley University which is just outside Boston. To make it even better we were able to bring our seven month old son George with us so he could spend some time seeing some of our friends and family.
But let’s focus this discussion on the conference. Schwab Impact is one of two major conferences we attend during the year and it helps our business in so many ways. The three most important take-aways for me (in no particular order) were discussions about the economy, portfolio construction issues and practice management topics.
When you do as much research as we do on the economy, it’s important to not rely on one source, or in some cases one news organization. There are many ways to interpret the same data points and as we always say bad news sells. Schwab Impact gives us the chance to sit with and discuss these topics with some of the leading economists and money managers in the industry with no agendas or bias. Having this opportunity allows us to sift through the noise and get good information to help manage our client’s assets. Our take away is that it’s not all doom and gloom and we are seeing positive signs, especially in the U.S. Economy which we continue to like.
Portfolio construction is incredibly important to us, so to be able to speak with leading portfolio managers and industry leaders to get their sense of the equity and fixed income markets is hugely valuable. Because of the interest rate environment we’re seeing a fixed income market that we haven’t seen in over 30 years with the potential of rising interest rates on the table for December. Having these discussions will help us position the portfolios in the best manner to navigate these changes.
Probably the best aspect of Schwab Impact is the ability for us to talk to all of our strategic partners and to interview potential strategic partners. As those who work with us know, we like technology in the investment space, but we really love it for ways in which it can help run our business. We strongly believe that our investment in technology not only helps us manage our business, but it also helps drive the overall client experience. There is a lot of exciting new features in the works for our client portal and we can’t wait to share them with our current clients and potential future clients.