Phoebe Venable: Forecast Dinner offers sound advice for investors

Investors have an unbelievable amount of information available to them every day. There are television networks that provide continuous programming dedicated to the minute-by-minute move of the capital markets.

Social media offer another source of financial information that investors are using more and more. Many times the financial information is provided in snippets or headlines, or even 140-character tweets. This abbreviated, quick relay of information can be overwhelming for investors and difficult to use when trying to make sound financial decisions.

If you are an investor looking for high-quality advice delivered in a presentation instead of a headline, consider attending CFA Society Nashville’s annual Forecast Dinner on Jan. 30 at Richland Country Club.

This event is open to the public and is a great opportunity for investors to hear the opinions of two nationally recognized investment professionals.

Not only can you hear the economic and financial forecasts of these two professionals, you can ask them questions after their presentations. This is a unique educational opportunity for all investors and financial advisers in our community.

Speaking at the dinner will be Robert C. Doll, chief equity strategist and senior portfolio manager at Nuveen Asset Management, and Richard Yamarone, senior economist at Bloomberg.

Doll is going to provide his 2014 forecast for the capital markets and discuss his 10 predictions for the year. Nuveen, headquartered in New York City, had $214.9 billion in total assets under management and an additional $200 billion in mutual funds, closed-end funds and separately managed accounts.

Doll’s predictions for this year include U.S. stocks having another good year and dividends increasing. He is less optimistic about gold. He will explain in detail how he arrived at these 10 predictions. For investors, it is important to go beyond the headline you might see on Twitter or CNBC and understand how the forecast was derived and what the forecast means for individual investors. Doll will be discussing how his forecast affects all types of investors (conservative, aggressive, seeking income, etc.).

Yamarone will share his economic forecast for 2104.

His focus in on monetary and fiscal policy as well as economic data. He will discuss the forces that are shaping our economy and the global economy. Yamarone and his team at Bloomberg travel extensively, interviewing executives of corporations across our country in order to understand how the economic data are translating in the real world of business, where decisions are being made about jobs, salaries and capital expenditures, among other topics.

By compiling the macroeconomic data, federal policy and trends in the business world, Yamarone builds a forecast for the financial markets that investors can use to make decisions about their own investment portfolios.

Phoebe Venable is president and COO of CapWealth Advisors LLC. Her column appears Saturdays in The Tennessean.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

If you would like to attend the event, register at www.cfanashville.org or call 615-778-0740.