Should we still be banking on the blockchain?

Growth in developed markets is slowing, which will effect Emerging Markets. But what are the causes of the slowdown, and how do they compare to the past? If the source is oil prices, what does this mean for oil-rich countries like Venezuela, Nigeria, or Saudi Arabia?

If the source is Central Banking policies, either coming from the US Federal Reserve or the European Central Bank – how will relative strength or weakness in currencies affect countries that hold debt?

When headlines abound around trade, trade deficits, and trade surpluses, how can investors hedge their bets?

And as economies emerge alongside technology, labor costs become as much an economic issue as a political issue. What role does automation play in the growth story?


This panel will discuss questions facing emerging markets including:

· Are EMs better equipped to handle growth slowdown than in 2015? What do they have going for them now that they didn’t back then?
· Are we in an EM rally? If so, how long will the EM rally last?
· Central Banking policies effect on EM
· Areas to avoid vs. attractive areas?


Panelists include:

Magdalena Polan - Global EM Economist at LGIM
Adrian Lowcock - Head of Personal Investing at Willis Owen
Richard Lightbound, CEO EMEA & Asia at ROBO Global

While many organization and individuals are interested in investing in emerging markets, most do not fully understand how various segments and strategies vary in the exposure they provide. Before committing to a strategy, it’s vital that investors do their due diligence to understand what their options are, how they differ, and which will deliver the exposure they think they're getting, as well as the optimal results. In this webinar, Peter Marber will clarify what various strategies really mean in order to enable a true risk/reward analysis on the part of EM investors.

Presented by Peter Marber, CIO for Emerging Markets at Aperture Investors

About Peter;

Peter Marber is the Chief Investment Officer for Emerging Markets at Aperture Investors, leading the New World Opportunities strategy. For over 30 years, Peter has professionally invested billions of dollars for many of the world’s largest companies at firms including Loomis, Sayles & Company, HSBC, and Wasserstein & Co.

Though a globally-recognized authority on emerging market economies, Peter landed on Wall Street not because of his love for financial markets, but rather due to his fascination with globalization. Peter studies how countries and their markets evolve to develop a deep understanding of emerging market dynamics. He passes along his curiosity, knowledge and passion as a professor at NYU, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and Columbia, as well as through his writings on globalization, emerging markets, and higher education.

Peter earned his B.A. at Johns Hopkins, his M.I.A. from Columbia, and his Ph.D from The University of Cambridge. He is an avid composer and guitarist and lives in New York City with his family.

Emerging Markets will be the recipients of the most asset flows of any asset class by Institutional Investors, according to JPMorgan Asset Management.

In Asia, investors are trying to find opportunity not just in china, but in other Asian countries that will benefit from a growing Chinese economy.

Trade and industry developments such as TPP and the Asia Region Funds Passport promise to galvanise investment across all of APAC. In South America, a commonly over-looked area, reforms in currency, pension, education and trade present investment opportunities as well. Africa is heavily invested in by China, and Africa’s collective GDP is expanding faster than the world’s average, and it is forecast to accelerate over the next five years to become the world’s second-fastest-growing region once again.

This webinar will cover:
- What will be the impacts of a strong US dollar on markets?
- How will trade agreements, and disagreements, will shape markets in the next 6 months?
- What industries will see the most and least activity from investors?
- Which emerging markets funds are seeing inflows and outflows, and why?

At over 12 Trillion Dollars in GDP, China is the world’s 2nd largest economy. It is home to 8 of the top 20 tech giants, it is a leader in exports, and is second only to the US in exports.

After years of unprecedented growth, china has begun to slow down. It is easy to point to the trade war with the US as the driver of this slowdown. But we need to look deeper.

This webinar will provide the Institutional investors and financial advisers interested in emerging markets, with:

An overview on China’s domestic policy in stimulating trade
An analysis of the 3 veins of the trade war
How to find opportunity in the market
Filtering the signal versus the noise
Q&A

Finance enables people to secure fundamental needs such as housing, education, energy and healthcare. However, globally, 1.7 billion people are without access to basic financial services, and 65 million micro, small and medium-sized business in emerging economies have unmet financing needs.

This webinar will address the following questions:
- What is Financial Inclusion?
- How does Financial Inclusion impact Emerging Markets?
- How many people are reached?
- What is Triodos IM's approach?
- What are trends and developments in this dynamic sector?

The adoption rates of smart beta among asset owners rose from 26% in 2015 to 48% in 2018 according to the FTSE Russell survey on smart beta. The growth in assets has been similarly impressive and according to Morningstar smart beta assets under management grew from USD 280bn at the end of 2012 to USD 999bn at the end of 2017. One of the key secondary effects of this significant growth is to put continued pressure on the margins of actively managed products.

The main purpose of the panel discussion will be to understand the reasons behind this runaway growth, how smart beta is developing and whether this growth is sustainable. The panelists will present their views on issues such as:
- whether smart beta is the same as factor investing
- how they decompose this broad universe
- the role of smart beta in new areas such as bond investing and even hedge fund or
- private equity investing
- how ESG can be applied to smart beta investing
- the ability to market time between ‘factors’

Panellists;
Justin Simler, Independent Industry Expert
Christopher Peel, Chief Investment Officer, Tavistock Wealth
Nicolas Rabener, CAIA, Managing Director, FactorResearch
Jean-Maurice Ladure, CFA, Head of Applied Research, EMEA, MSCI

In a year that has seen the $5tr Global ETF industry go from strength to strength, hear the opinion from thought leaders and industry insiders as to what drove that success.

You'll learn which new investment themes were launched in 2018, which ETFs gathered the most assets and returns and where the ETF market is heading in 2019.

With so many products to choose from hear the views of our panel as to what the industry trends will be in the year ahead.

Via our panel of investment professionals you will learn about the different ways that these diversified investment funds can be deployed in both bullish and bearish markets.


Allan Lane - Moderator (Co-Founder of Algo-Chain)
James McManus - Head of ETF Research - Nutmeg
Hector McNeil - Co CEO - HANetf
Irene Bauer - CIO Twenty20 Investments
John Swolfs - CEO Inside ETFs

In 2018, many equity markets suffered setbacks which can be at least partially trace back to the US – China Trade War and how would this generational topic affect us in 2019? And how should one position the portfolio accordingly?

Join us for our upcoming BrightTalk Investment Outlook 2019 webinar, in which we will examine:

• What Remains of the US – China Trade War?
• How did the Trade War Affect China’s Economy Thus Far?
• Implication of Further Inclusion of A-shares by MSCI
• China-focused ETF Landscape in Europe

Presented by;
Simon Lee, Head of Institution Business - Internationals & HK, CSOP Asset Management Limited

Simon is currently the Head of Institutional Business at CSOP Asset Management and his team covers investors in both Europe & Hong Kong.

Prior to CSOP, Simon spent 7 years at Bloomberg as an ETF/Mutual Fund Market Specialist & Senior RM covering offshore Chinese financial institutions.

Earlier in his career, Simon worked for Credit Suisse, Mayfair Pacific Financial Group, and Fubon Bank in Hong Kong. Simon started his career at SAFE HK as an Analyst and was subsequently promoted to Portfolio Manager responsible for managing part of China’s Foreign Reserves.

Simon earned his BA Degree from UCLA.

This has been a highly extended global economic cycle led by the US. Its longevity has been due to a number of factors including unorthodox monetary policy, fiscal stimulus and an absence of the exuberance that typically precedes a market reversal. The panellists will debate which factors are likely to drive markets over the next 12 months. They will cover key issues such as:

* The underlying strength of the US economy and the timing, and potential causes, of recession

* Evidence of inflationary pressure and the consequent impact on economies and markets of any reduction in liquidity

* Whether the downtrend in labour’s share of income is likely to reverse

* The outlook for the US dollar and the emerging markets

The panellists will discuss what the market currently discounts and how their views differ from this consensus. They will give their views on the asset allocation and style, region and sector exposures that are likely to offer the best (and worst) combination of risk and reward in this environment. They will finish by suggesting their own possible surprises for 2019. These are outcomes which the market believes have no better than a one in four chance but which the panellists believe have a probability of 50% or more.

Justin Simler, Industry Expert
Lars Kreckel, Global Equity Strategist, Legal and General Investment Management
Chris Watling, CEO & Chief Market Strategist, Longview Economics
Lothar Mentel, Chief Investment Officer, Tatton Investment Management

A lot can happen in a month, particularly if you were working in the investment management industry recently.

In this ETF Summit Webinar, we hear the opinion from thought leaders and industry insiders the increasing amount of investor money flooding into Fixed Income ETFs, and how the ETF Industry has been coping with the big news events that show no sign of abating - China, Brexit, and Trump.

You'll learn about:

- The selection criteria to consider when selecting Bond ETFs and other Fixed Income ETFs.

- Which ETFs have gathered the most assets since the start of the 2019

- Whether there is a consensus of opinion as to which categories of ETFs offer the best opportunities in the months ahead.

Moderator - Allan Lane, Founder, Algo-Chain
Beverly Chandler, Managing Editor, ETF Express
Irene Bauer - Chief Investment Officer, Twenty20 investments
James McManus - Head of ETF Research - Nutmeg

Boutique Investment Management firm Charteris bring forward one of their experienced financial professionals to discuss current topics affecting markets from a global macro perspective. We will look at the themes, issues and outline predictions in the commodity space for the coming year.

Presented by
Terry Farrow, ACIB, APFS, CFP, Chartered MCSI, Chartered Financial Planner, European Financial Planner (EFP)

AEW Research provides an update on it's 2019 European commercial real estate market outlook based on recent changes in bond market pricing. We present our new lower for longer scenario analysis across 90 different market segments, using our risk-adjusted return framework

Presented by
Hans Vrensen CFA, CRE, MANAGING DIRECTOR, AEW
Dennis Schoenmaker Ph.D., ASSOCIATE, AEW