UASBIG - News

Co-Presidents James Fowler and Ed Warner represent UASBIG at R.I.S.E. IX Conference!
April 7th, 12:33pm

UASBIG Co-Presidents James Fowler and Ed Warner attended the 9th annual R.I.S.E. Conference, in Dayton, Ohio from March 26th-28th.

“The conference is the first forum of its kind to bring leading students, faculty and Wall Street together in an interactive learning environment to discuss a range of pertinent issues facing investment professionals. R.I.S.E. includes keynote presentations by nationally renowned industry professionals; specialized breakout sessions focusing on a range of investment, career strategies and academic program development related issues; security analysis and portfolio management workshops, and an optional portfolio competition.”-Taken from R.I.S.E. website, (http://sbaweb.udayton.edu/rise/index.asp)

The conference drew over 2600 students, academics, and industry professionals from around the globe. The keynote presentations were modeled after the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, with “Dr. Bob” Froehlich moderating the panel discussions. A diverse group of investment professionals and economists voiced their views of the current state of the economy and the markets, while also fielding questions from students.

Some of Ed and James’ favorite insights from the keynote speakers at the conference include:

“What you had was a wave of innovation in the industry which was essentially ‘regulatory arbitrage’”
            -CNBC Senior Economics Reporter Steve Liesman, on the practices on Wall Street preceding the financial crisis

Mr. Liesman also noted that it took 33 years for a seminal work to be published which laid out the causes of the Great Depression.

Speakers on the same panel as Mr. Liesman suggested that the smart people who went to work on Wall St., instead of other “productive” sectors, did not understand the risk of the new products that they were structuring and selling on the market.

Jeffrey Kleintop, Chief Market Strategist at LPL Financial, suggested the U.S. may currently be in a “gold” and “treasury” bubble.

A speaker on a panel discussing the government responses to the financial crisis said that the various bailouts were structured by “bureaucrats eating pizza in their offices at 2 in the morning”

Dr. Robert D. McTeer Jr., former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, likened the provisions in President Obama’s $790 billion stimulus bill to “shooting a pig with a shotgun”

Overall, James and Ed both thought that the best part of the whole experience was hearing from some of the smartest minds in the financial industry, and they felt privileged to be able to represent UASBIG and the University at Albany at such an event.

Additionally, James and Ed spoke with leaders of other student investment funds at many different schools across the country, which gave them the opportunity to see what other similar groups are doing.

The two Co-Presidents said that they hoped that the trip to the conference remains a tradition in UASBIG, as it affords the group a once in a lifetime opportunity to gain insight from a diverse group of industry professionals and to represent the University at Albany.

-Ed Warner, UASBIG