OC Talk Radio

Chip Espinoza has studied millennials in the workplace. The author of the recent book Millennials Who Manage and the 2010 book Managing the Millennials says tis new generation of managers will take a step further in creating a people-first workplace.

A DIFFERENT WAY TO MEASURE PRODUCTIVITY

Say goodbye to annual performance reviews and rigid nine-to-five working hours. "This generation of managers is going to identify metrics that determine whether people are productive or not," says Espinoza. Frustrated with the idea that productivity is measured by the number of hours you sit at your desk, millennials are going to focus on better ways to measure performance. "Things like key performance indicators will continue to be a movement," says Espinoza. Millennial managers will avoid formal annual performance reviews, replacing them with more frequent and informal feedback systems that allow for better communication between managers and employees. [from Fast Company]

Investment Strategies you are NOT hearing elsewhere

Interviews with Mutual Funds, Investment Strategists and Authors on Alternative Investment Strategies you are not hearing elsewhere.

Do you know the Three Biggest Mistakes That Most Accountants Make With Their Marketing? 

Peter Lawson has developed the marketing equation for accountants that once implemented will immediately drive traffic to their web sites and attract business owners that are looking for their help.

Business owners today want just two things for their business...more leads and more revenue. As a practicing accountant, Peter can relate to this situation where accountants do not have a system to assist their clients with marketing. Well now they do. Peter has developed a marketing system that allows accountants to offer tools to their clients to assist them with generating more leads and more revenue for their business. And the clients really appreciate this advice, and are prepared to pay for it. This doesn't mean that the accountant becomes a marketing expert, it just means that they have a system available to assist their clients with marketing.

In his spare time Peter sails the Historical 18ft Skiffs on Sydney Harbour. This is a great way to keep in touch with his sailing buddies and have a beer and a chat after the race. 

Peter's specialties:

*Lead generation for accountants 

*Marketing for accountants 

*Attracting quality clients for accountants 

*Improving client retention

*Monetizing the advice that accountants are currently giving away for free

*Coaching system to attract and retain quality clients

*Author of #1 Best Selling Books on how Accountants and Bookkeepers can engage with clients

*Specialist in setting up Business Advisory Service Divisions in accounting practices

David Armstrong, portfolio manager for Cedar Capital, was Strategic Investor Radio’s very first guest when the program debuted in October 2014. In this episode, Mr. Armstrong is back with host Charley Wright, as the two men discuss Cedar Capital’s “unique and innovative investment strategies” and approach to portfolio construction.

Cedar Capital works exclusively with investment advisors who then maintain a personal relationship with clients. The firm’s Market Advantage Portfolios (“MAPs”) are held within separately managed accounts (“SMAs”) or investors can hold assets directly by copying Cedar Capital’s allocation weights. Those weights are based on models used by endowments and foundations, and generally break down to equal parts private equity (“PE”), absolute-return strategies, and commodity and real estate exposure. MAPs achieves or emulates those exposures through ETFs and mutual funds.

In this episode of Strategic Investor Radio, host Charley Wright interviews Bill Kelly, the CEO of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (“CAIA”) Association. Bill began his career as a CPA for Price Waterhouse before moving on to asset management, where he had a nearly 30-year career on the “buy side.” Ultimately, he was the founding partner of an asset management firm that sold to Robeco, and he says this experience gave him a great deal of insight into how the industry runs.

Today, Bill is the CEO of the CAIA Association, and he says “our product is education.” The CAIA began conducting classes in 2003, when there were only 43 students – including previous Strategic Investor Radio guest Dick Pfister, who proudly boasts of his “#10” CAIA charter. Now the CAIA Association has more than 8,400 members in 90 different countries, and its annual class sizes are in the neighborhood of 6,000 students.

In this episode of Strategic Investor Radio, host Charley Wright interviews Dr. Omar Shah of Boston Infomatix. Dr. Shah’s premier product is a trading platform and portfolio management system that combines data analysis, an algorithmic trading system, trade execution, and money management all in one.

Dr. Shah’s system looks at seven different signals that, when aggregated, determine a suggested allocation percentage. For example, if the model’s output was “20,” this would mean investors should invest a 20% share of the capital they have allocated to the system in the broad U.S. stock market (i.e., the “SPY” ETF), and keep the remainder in cash. The system yields a new output every trading day, taking things like interest rates, market breadth, volatility, and volume into account.

In this episode of Strategic Investor Radio, host Charley Wright interviews Cathie Wood. Ms. Wood is the CEO and CIO of Ark Invest, which is headquartered in New York City. She has more than two decades worth of experience as an economist, equity research analyst, and portfolio manager. In 2014, Ms. Wood founded Ark Invest, which she says is focused on only one thing: Disruptive innovation.

The company’s five big themes are:

- DNA sequencing

- Next-generation Internet

- Automation and artificial intelligence (“AI”)

- Energy storage (she predicts the demise of the internal-combustion engine in the next 10-20 years)

- Blockchain and bitcoin

Indeed, Ms. Wood says Ark Invest probably knows more about blockchain, bitcoin, ether, and ethereum than most buy-side institutions.

In this episode of Strategic Investor Radio, host Charley Wright interviews Bob Hennessey of San Diego-based Coastal Capital. Bob started out in the 1990s as a financial planner and advisor, but then started wholesaling for a variety of asset management shops some years later. Around five years ago, he went into business for himself with Coastal Capital, and now he works as an independent wholesaler, representing funds to the advisory community.

Bob is an alternative investments specialist. He says he likes alternatives because of their low correlation to traditional asset classes, such as stocks and bonds, and their ability to “dampen the volatility” of a portfolio. He loves liquid alternatives for expanding access to alternative asset classes and strategies for everyday investors, and he notes how as recently as the late 1980s, retail investors’ only real options were stocks, bonds, and real estate. Host Charley Wright also notes that alternatives provide a “smoother ride” during volatile times, such as the period immediate following the Brexit vote.

In this episode of Strategic Investor Radio, host Charley Wright interviews Alan Stone of Wall Street Research. Mr. Stone’s firm, which is headquartered in Los Angeles, publishes newsletters and reports focused on small- and micro-cap stocks. These stocks may trade on major exchanges or over-the-counter, or they may be entirely private.

Mr. Stone graduated from Wharton, where he studied economics and finance. He had a notable career on Wall Street before relocating to Los Angeles more than a quarter-century ago, which is when he purchased the then-fifteen-year-old Wall Street Research brand from its original owner. Stone repurposed the newsletter as an online publication, and twenty-five years later, his site – WallStreetResearch.org – is the top listing for the popular Google search “Wall Street research.”