Financial advisors and the fundsters who want to reach them are converging on downtown Chicago today for Morningstar's 2015 Investment Conference. M* expects more than 2,000 attendees, including about 1,000 FAs, as well as nearly 700 exhibitors from 191 different companies.

The giant conference, Morningstar's 27th annual, is being held in the West Building of Chitown's McCormick Place convention center. Pre-conference sessions will start this morning, but the main event kicks off at 3pm with keynote remarks from GMO [profile] guru Jeremy Grantham. And fundsters and FAs alike may be eagerly awaiting the final keynote session on Friday, featuring Pimco [profile] CEO Doug Hodge and group chief investment officer Daniel Ivascyn a year after now-ex-Pimco star Bill Gross famously donned sunglasses for his remarks at the same conference.

Other big speakers, mostly top PMs, who are scheduled to appear include:

• Joe Davis, principal and global chief economist at Vanguard [profile];
  
  
• David Kelly, managing director and chief global strategist of J.P. Morgan Funds [profile];
  
  
• Sallie Krawcheck, chair of Ellevate;
  
  
• Rob Lovelace, president of Capital Research and Management Company [profile];
  
  
• Jeff Mitchell, head of research and global asset allocation at Fidelity [profile];
  
  
• Bill Nygren, PM at Harris Associates' [profile] Oakmark Funds;
  
  
• Steven Romick, PM and managing partner at FPA Funds [profile];
  
  
• Diana Strandberg, PM at Dodge & Cox [profile]; and
  
  
• Susan Wyderko, president and CEO of the Mutual Fund Directors Forum.

The speakers and moderators from Morningstar's own ranks will include: Russel Kinnel, director of mutual fund research; Laura Pavlenko Lutton, director of manager research for equity strategies in North America; Jeff Ptak, global director of manager research; Hal Ratner, global head of research for Morningstar Investment Management; John Rekenthaler, vice president of research; and Dan Rohr, equity analyst and director of basic materials research. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


Stay ahead of the news ... Sign up for our email alerts now
CLICK HERE