Topics for Investment Meetings

Investment meetings tend to fall into one of three categories: organizational, educational or transactional. Organizational meetings involve review of investment performance, setting of investment strategy and administrative tasks such as distributions and taxes. Educational meetings include discussions of the economy, technical analysis of stock price charts, Federal Reserve monetary policy, Fed open market operations, portfolio management techniques and financial analysis techniques. Transactional meetings deal with the purchase or sale of specific securities.

Investors want to know the value proposition attached to any investment. If the value proposition is appealing, the likelihood of investment is high. Included in the value proposition is a comparison of the pros and cons of the economy, the investor's needs and wants, alternative investments and the projected future performance relative to past performance of various investment sectors.

Whether you are planning meetings for an investment club, including investment topics in other community meetings or are holding investment meetings as a way of promoting your investment adviser or brokerage business, it is always a good idea to define and the expectations of the participants in the meeting to avoid any liability associated with recommending investments. Investors also want information on how things work, such as how the investment club is organized legally, how it distributes and collects money and what tax consequences arise from investment club decisions.

Explanations of financial statement analysis techniques, issues of corporate management, industry sector analysis, economic analysis and portfolio management tools and techniques are always important educational topics. Understanding the jobs of the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the various exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority helps investors make good choices. Other good educational topics include geopolitical influences on interest rates and stock values, the causes and results of inflation and personal finance topics such as college and retirement planning.

While sales pitches for specific securities can be educational, they are intended to spark a transaction, so should be considered transaction-oriented. Transaction topics include discussions of securities to buy or sell, the amount of money to be allotted to the transaction and the goal of the transaction -- income, price appreciation or short or long term hold.