One of the highlights of the year for the Pinnacle Investment Team is the annual Inside the Investment Committee presentation for Pinnacle clients. The objective of the presentation is to give our clients a feel for the kind of presentation that the investment team (our Pinnacle investment analysts) puts on for the investment committee (Pinnacle wealth managers and partners) each month. I have long maintained that the monthly committee presentations are of the highest caliber, and that our wealth managers are subsequently well prepared to discuss Pinnacle’s investment strategy with our clients at a very detailed and sophisticated level. The fact that our wealth managers don’t have to actually do investment research and make investment decisions allows them to focus on the details of our clients’ financial planning needs, and also allows them to maintain a very high level of professional expertise in a complicated world of tax, estate, elder care, education, health care, and other types of planning.
Pinnacle client attendance at Inside the Investment Committee tends to be good, either because we hold the meeting on a Saturday which makes traffic easier to deal with, or because the financial markets tend to always be interesting in their own right, or because Rick, Carl, Sean, and Sauro put on a great show. This year we had more than 100 clients show up at the Sheraton in Columbia, Md. to hear the latest about our investment views. The traffic was easy…I’m told. Between the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and recent events in the Middle East, there was plenty of investment news that was of immediate interest. And yes, the guys put on a fantastic presentation. This is their one chance to get unchained from their office chairs in the Pit and get out and shine in front of a large Pinnacle audience, and they work hard to make the most of it. The charts and graphics were crisp and their presentations were clear and to the point.
This year’s themes included Rick and Carl discussing global macro economic and market concerns, Sean giving everyone an overview of technical analysis, and Sauro explaining our valuation work and pointing out some of the difficulties in using P/E ratios to reach a conclusion about market value. To the credit of our audience, they hung in there for the entire one and one half hour presentation and seemed attentive and appreciative to the end. As usual, they asked some excellent questions and I think that the morning was considered to be productive for all concerned. Of course, for those of you reading this blog, the themes that we addressed weren’t exactly “news” since we write on them in this space all of the time. If you couldn’t be there, keep half an eye on the Pinnacle website for further news since I’m told the meeting was recorded as a webinar.
