Monthly Archives: February 2018

2018 Annual Dinner Recap

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By Elliot Smallidge, a student at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management, Class of 2019

I was ecstatic when I heard about the opportunity to see Professor Jeremy Siegel speak. As the highly acclaimed author of Stocks for the Long Run, I knew that Dr. Siegel’s lecture would complement everything I had learned in school. His take on investing would corroborate the conclusions of class after countless class: buy and hold stocks because you can’t beat the market. I arrived at the Minnesota CFA Society Annual Dinner eagerly awaiting his remarks.

Dr. Siegel contracted the flu and was forced to withdraw on short notice. Replacing him would be Doug Ramsey, CIO at Leuthold Weeden Capital. This change of speaker didn’t just shake up my night, but rather my entire perspective on investing.

Every undergraduate portfolio management class teaches that markets are efficient. No amount of fundamental analysis, and especially not technical analysis, could give an investor a sustainable edge. Enter Doug Ramsey, CFA, CMT, and master of market technicals.

His remarks upended everything I had learned in class about investing. Never had I seen anyone seriously attempt to understand markets by examining patterns in the relationships between various economic data in the way that Mr. Ramsey did. His opening comments centered on what he called the eight “Bellweather” indices. Displaying a chart of the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and several sub-sectors, Mr. Ramsey pointed out that every sector (except utilities) had trended upward in unison through January 26; the market was rising broadly across all industries. In a further analysis, we broke the S&P into deciles based on market capitalization and found a similar result: strong stock performance across the board. This pattern, Ramsey explained, has historically indicated not the peak of a bull market, but rather an average of 59 more prosperous weeks.

All my life I learned that there was no science to historical trends, yet here it was so clear before me. I will admit, some of Mr. Ramsey’s further analysis went a bit over my head, but his message has stuck with me. I now know that, however unpredictable the markets are, I cannot discount the value of patterns in historical data.

I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Ramsey the next week at his office. In a phrase, the theme of our conversation was trust yourself. News outlets and publications are important, but at the end of the day, he cautioned me, your own analysis and critical thinking are the most valuable assets.

Although I did not have the chance to hear Dr. Siegel speak, my experience at the Annual Dinner altered my perspective on investing and opened my eyes to a brand new skill set in a way that I never could have imagined.

Thank you, Doug Ramsey and CFA Society Minnesota, for this wonderful opportunity.

What Do CFA Charterholders Value? Giving Back

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Elizabeth Engel, M.A., CAE

Following up on our last blog post about the member engagement project we’ve been working on for the better part of the past year, some of the key themes that emerged from Spark’s interviews with CFA Charterholders about your member experiences include:

  • Members universally recommend membership: “I would be hard pressed to identify any CFAs who aren’t members. I would be more likely to question anyone who is a CFA and doesn’t belong, particularly if they’re in the Twin Cities. There is so much good to be gained from the programs that not joining is doing your career a disservice.”
  • Volunteering of all types is very popular with those who are able. “I wasn’t sure what to expect, and it’s knocked my socks off.”
  • Members highly value the job board, and that popularity is confirmed by the fact that when you Google “CFA Society MN…,” it’s the first auto-complete option that comes up.
  • Members recognize what a major investment of resources Intellisight is and, although several noted that it is not appropriate for all members, they generally feel it’s a good investment. “[Our firm] supports the CFAMN annual conference. It’s been a great investment for us, and it has raised the profile of both the Society and the larger Minneapolis investment community.”
  • Members are largely aware of CFAMN’s “experimental mindset” and support it.

Looking to the quantitative data, the top benefits members identified include:

  • Networking opportunities, and many specifically called out that CFAMN is only responsible to provide the environment, and it’s up to individuals to take advantage
  • Job board (as noted above, Google analytics support this)
  • Luncheons
  • Participants like the mentoring program, both the formal one-on-one and the informal group mentoring
  • Senior professionals are looking to give back: speak, write, mentor

Volunteering and giving back to the profession are clearly very important to charterholders. As one interview subject said, “I want to be part of the group that takes the Society to the next level, wherever that is.” That is a common sentiment. People who’ve been involved in the CFA Institute Research Challenge are particularly enthusiastic. However, because of schedule concerns, members would like even more one-off or low-commitment options.

Several people also noted that they are aware that CFAMN has a small staff and said they would be okay being asked to volunteer for a specific task, not just come up with ideas. Staff members also know that passionate volunteers are the key to program success, so finding more volunteers – and finding out more about what they’re passionate about – is critical, and “smaller” volunteer opportunities are a good on-ramp for new volunteers.

Several members also noted that community-based volunteering activities should focus on things that use CFA skills, specifically financial literacy training, activities, or programming.

Of course, one doesn’t collect and analyze data as an end unto itself. The next question becomes: What are you going to do about what you learned? Over the next several blog posts, board and committee members will share their thoughts on that question, and the series will conclude with a roadmap post about where the Society and the Institute plan to go from here.

What Keeps CFA Charterholders Up At Night?

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Elizabeth Engel, M.A., CAE

What keeps you up at night? And what can CFA Society Minnesota do to help?

About nine months ago, CFAMN engaged Spark Consulting to try to find out.

The timing of the project was inspired by some technology changes the CFA Institute is making that will help the Societies and the Institute work together and share data better to help members like you achieve your most important goals and solve your most pressing problems.

Society leadership proposed questions we wanted to try to answer such as:

  • What do members need from CFAMN to continue to grow as financial professionals throughout their entire careers?
  • What do members truly value in their relationship with CFAMN? What, if anything, is missing?
  • Are members contributing to CFAMN in ways the Society isn’t aware of or recognizing?
  • What can CFAMN do to intentionally build and strengthen the organization’s relationships with members, and members’ relationships with each other?
  • How can CFAMN work more collaboratively with both the CFA Institute and the other Societies to better serve all charterholders?

Over the course of the summer of 2017, Spark’s CEO Elizabeth Engel interviewed four members of the board of directors, 15 charterholders, and the Institute’s Society Relations staff; and spent two days in Minneapolis meeting with CFAMN’s staff, board of directors, and membership committee in person (she also had the opportunity to attend our summer social and learn about lawn bowling). Engel also reviewed CFAMN data, including the results of several years’ worth of member satisfaction surveys and event evaluations, the Society Data Book provided by the Institute, our current strategic goals, and member program use and other demographics over time.

By the time Labor Day rolled around, she had learned a number of things about our members and your needs:

  • Going into this project, CFAMN had a theory that geographical location (Twin Cities versus the rest of our three-state region) was a strong determinant of members’ sense of connection to the Society. That theory appears to be correct: “Right now, I’m this anonymous person in the woods of northern MN; it’s hard to figure out how to be engaged.”
  • With regards to your needs, we were able to identify two programming gaps: members would like more programming for experienced professionals and more programming that’s accessible to non-Twin Cities members.
  • Members are also concerned about brand awareness: “Friends with both the CFA and a JD say it’s as hard as the bar exam, but the general public doesn’t understand that. While big financial services firms and banks understand the value of the CFA, smaller banks and firms don’t.”
  • Charterholders use financial skills in all aspects of their lives. Many of you, particularly those who pay for membership out of pocket (or out of your own small business revenues), make the actual financial calculation about membership: “Do I plan to attend enough events this coming year so that the total amount I’d save through the member discount equals or exceeds the cost of dues?”
  • Given that, we’re especially pleased to report that the overwhelming majority of you answer that question with a resounding “Yes!” The Society annually retains more than 94% of members, which is above the overall average for all Societies and for the Institute itself, where membership is required in order to continue to use the CFA designation. The Institute considers 95% retention to be “perfect,” so CFAMN is just about perfect on this measure.

What does all that mean?

We’re glad you asked!

We’ll be running a short series of blog posts over the next two months or so, sharing some more findings from the project, allowing board of directors and committee members’ to tell you their thoughts and reactions, and discussing the roadmap of where CFAMN and the Institute plan to go next in helping you continue to advance, personally and professionally.