Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Okay you know just how wonderful it is. You are off work - relaxing and hanging out with family and friends over wonderful food and drink -all the while admiring the gorgeous weather out. Can it get any better than this? Well, of course. We all have lots to be thankful for in this this golden state. But all is not sunny. 11 million people in the state of California alone will go hungry on Thanksgiving day and 65,000 children in California have no permanent home. Pretty grim stats in the land of plenty. Okay so you know that there's not much you can do. But what you can do is just be conscious of these facts when you buy your groceries or open the door to your home. Breathe in the bounty - give thanks - and breathe out compassion for those who go without.
Coaching question- If you has the opportunity to give, would it be cash, a service, or your time?
We are back from the Schwab conference in Las Vegas. Piled into the RV with hubby and dog and took off for Sin City. We stayed at the Mandalay hotel because it was closest to the convention center where the conference took place. I wouldn't recommend this place at all. The rooms look beautiful on the internet but blah in reality. No rooms are really reserved-it's first come, first served. So we ended up with two queen beds and in a non-handicap room (luckily I now have my shower leg). Ugh! Off to a bad start. Room service was so booked- I couldn't get my coffee before I set out for my half hour (that's right- a half hour) indoor walk to the rooms. Everyone was complaining about how far it was from the hotel rooms. Thank goodness, I have been working out a lot so I had the stamina for it. I was overwhelmed by how many participants there where---close to 4,000 people. And probably another 1,000 vendors in the exhibit hall. The opening talk was with Steve Wynn- the owner of many luxury casino/hotels--- now doing lots of business in Macau, China. To my surprise he was a very good speaker. No notes --just a chat about how he does business, how he has succceeded and how he has failed. He propped himself up several times--- he just had a double knee replacement surgery, he explained. He also has macular degeneration in his eyes. That's how the name of his first casino- the Mirage came about. He said that is what it would look like to him by the time it was built.
Another highlight, was the debate between Bill Sharpe, the economics pulitzer prize winner for the cap m model of money managment versus Rob Arnott, whose new research is claiming that the markets are not efficient and so created (in conjunction with schwab) the new RAFI (Rob Arnott Fundamental Index). Rob's research contains a lot of back testing so it hasn't really been proven in real time. History will tell whose right. But he also has the backing of Jeremy Siegel (who I am a huge fan of) who is the finance professor at Wharton. I got to meet Jeremy and he gave me a copy of his new book and signed it for me. Woo-hoo! He is backing the Wisdom Tree Investment company with his own line of fundamental indexes. Still-----I am skeptical. (Anyone remember Long term Capital Management? Hmmm......)
Enough of that finance stuff, it's off to party and we were all guests for a private Sheryl Crow concert and a big buffett. Now we're talking.
On the last day, Chuck himself was seen walking about the hallway talking to advisors. Schwab Institutional is celebrating their 20 year anniversary. Four years after SI was started, I was part of that growth that has led SI to now being close to half of Schwab's profit margin. It would have been even higher if he hadn't stepped down as CEO and let Pottruck run his company into the ground so bad that Chuck had to boot him out and take over again. Chuck has a lot of catching up to do. As I talk to many advisors, most have moved a lot of their assets to other custodians such as Fidelity and TD Ameritrade. Chuck is finally getting it that he has more to gain by helping advisors grow their businesses than competing with them over the same clients.
I am delighted to see more women at the conference than ever before-- but most are still in support positions. It's still a bastion of white, males out there. And more and more are shunning comprehensive financial planning for just money management (where the easy money is). It's a shame because you really can't do one well without the other and sooner or later, that strategy will come back to haunt you.
The ending talk was by Bono. Ok, I know he was going to ask for money for Africa. Yada-yada-yada.
Surprisingly, though he addressed all of our American concerns like - how do we know the $$$ is not going to corrupt governments? How much of the $$$ are really going to the people and making a difference?
Why should we care when we have so many of our own domestic problems here? By the end, everyone was giving him a standing ovation. The secret of his pitch was to appeal to Americans' ego and (this is what got me) if we don't feed them and educate them--- guess who will?
It's not just an American problem or an African problem - now it's everyone's problem.