Agora Financial summit in Vancouver searches for new ideas

The Agora Financial Summit is taking place in Vancouver this week and ArabianMoney will be on the spot both reporting back on the new investment ideas and taking part in the debate. It will be very interesting to guage the mood of this influential audience of mainly high net worth individuals from North America.

ArabianMoney certainly found the event useful last year. The dollar tip was spot on (see this article). So was the presentation from the founder of Pan American Silver (see this article). And the scepticism about the stock market rally was premature but now looks more prescient (see this article).

The participants enthusiasm for gold has triumphed, although the stock market rally went on for much longer than most expected. However, that now seems to be over and for Friday’s grand finale both Dr Marc Faber and Bill Bonner will speak on this subject.

US Comptroller General

The keynote speaker on Day One is David Walker, the former US Comptroller General who first blew the whistle on mounting deficit and spending liabilities. His theme is how to turn America around and restore fiscal responsibility.

He is followed by Agora star Chris Mayer and US Global Investors’ Frank Holmes setting the scene for investors over the next few years. Barry Ritholz will offer his views on investing in equities and bonds after the age of fiat currencies.

Conference favorite Rick Rule, the legendary Vancouver stockbroker, is back with his views on seeking alpha and his 7am briefings for early risers. John Mauldin of Millenium Wave Investment will present on ‘The End Game’ and the giant of alternative investment Doug Casey will sum up his conclusions of how ‘You can profit from the coming collapse of Western civilisation’.

Agora Financial is the publisher of The Daily Reckoning, the world’s largest circulation financial newsletter, and each year its sell-out annual conference in Vancouver attracts around 1,000 participants. If many of the presentation titles seem doom and gloom then that is only to be expected as recent events in financial markets have given new credibility to these views.

Gold to $46,000?

More positive themes are Frank Holmes on how high can gold go, and Bryon King with his quirky opinions on energy and mining investments.

Day Three visits the theme of ‘Energy, currency and emerging markets’ and will be opened by ArabianMoney editor Peter Cooper. The prospects for energy markets over the coming few years will be reviewed by a series of expert speakers, and in the afternoon Mr Cooper will explain how an upturn in the oil price is likely to revive the fortunes of Dubai as a part of the United Arab Emirates.