By MoneyMorning.com.au
In 1992, bestselling author Michael Crichton published a novel called Rising Sun. It begins with the strangulation of an American girl inside the US headquarters of a Japanese corporation.
The story was fiction. But for Crichton, it was also something of a thesis. Japan looms over the US in the book the way the strangler arches over the blonde – threateningly, with greedy hands outstretched. Crichton thought America was selling its future to a cash-rich Japan – and would keep doing so, until there was nothing left.
What Crichton failed to realize was that Japan was going into a long bear market. The figures even then showed that the Japanese stock market, real estate and foreign investment were all down from huge highs. And time would show that they would keep going down. But it looked different then. Japan still looked like it would recover.
There were plenty of people who thought Japan would come back. But if they invested accordingly, they would have lost money. A lot.
Today, the story is China. The easy story the mainstream tells us is an industrialising Asia will put a floor under Australian prosperity as a zombie America fades. Things are more complex than that. But a weakness in human beings (as investors) is we fall back on simple stories to explain events.
There are no easy answers. Certainly not ones you can use to shape an investment strategy you could bet your life savings on.
But at ‘After America’, the editors at Port Phillip Publishing will sort through the ideas – both theoretical ideas and investing ideas – and see which ones are valid. Some ideas will be already ‘priced in’ to stock prices. But there are sure to be some that aren’t. That’s where the profit potential is.
If you can get the big investing themes right, managing your money should be easy, or at least easier. Because most of your capital will be in the right asset class in the right market from the start (according to the famous Brinson Study, this is the biggest influence on your returns over time.)
But of course, you have to be in the right market and asset class in the first place.
And our first ever investing symposium is designed to make sure fact isn’t getting mixed up with fiction as the future unfolds.
So get on board – Money Morning is going on tour.
My name is Callum Newman – the most recent addition to the editorial team at Money Morning – and I’ll be your roving reporter at Port Phillip Publishing’s ‘After America’ conference.
We’re not quite in Sydney yet, but the reckoning begins today. Your regular editors, Kris Sayce and Dr. Alex Cowie, are putting the final additions to their speeches and recommendations right now. The other Port Phillip editors are doing the same thing. They’re all in for a busy week. So I’ll send you a daily update, including Money Weekend, with the key insights, themes and memorable quotes from the conference.
“After America” kicks off tomorrow, in the bar. It’s probably the best place to be in over the coming days – I certainly hope so – to corner the editors, special guests and attendees to discuss key money-making ideas.
The barman should end up happy – he’ll get an earful of financial expertise instead of the usual lecture on cricket and the drinking prowess of the Australian male… especially this one. That’s because I’ll be listening, instead of talking, in order to be your eyes and ears.
The things we want to know – and hope you do too – are the key things we’ll discuss:
We’ll also explore hedges, risks, defensive plays, speculations, profit opportunities, retirement plans, trading strategies, price signals, chart movements, moving averages, historical lessons and opposing views – everything that makes a market.
The job is then to distil all of it into an actionable plan. Making serious money is, after all, why we’re going. The recommendations won’t be theoretical. They’ll be a call to action.
Of course, in these notes, we’ll have to leave out any specific recommendations our speakers make. But we’ll share every important investing theme with you. And there are plenty to discuss. We certainly picked the right moment. It’s an excellent time to get together. There are plenty of pieces to the investing puzzle right now, such as…
The only problem for most investors is the pieces never seem to fit together in the way they should.
But that’s why our editors are on a serious undertaking to make sure you survive financially intact.
The market always brings challenges. Just as it always brings opportunities. Investing isn’t easy, but if you want to live a comfortable retirement, you have to do something with your money.
The time has come for us to leave mission control in St Kilda and head to Sydney. As of tomorrow, we’re on location.
Callum Newman
Roving Reporter, After America