Speakers Bureau: Municipalities

Marie Autphenne

Managing Director, Senior Muni Credit Analyst
Fixed Income Municipal Credit Group

Possible Topic Title(s):
The Ins and Outs of Municipal Bonds

Brief Topic Description(s):
A discussion of the fundamentals and technicals of the municipal bond market, with a focus on credit trends and surveillance best practices.

Target Audience:
Municipalities, Banks, Total Return

Orrin Edwards, CPA-inactive

Managing Director
Fixed Income Strategies

Possible Topic Title(s):
Negative Convexity: Its Impact on Your Portfolio
Optimizing Your Portfolio’s Performance
Portfolio Management Resources: Are you taking full advantage of available resources?

Brief Topic Description(s):
Negative Convexity:  How convexity (negative) affects your portfolio’s earnings/yield, cash flow, unrealized gain/loss in shocked scenarios over time

Optimizing Your Portfolio’s Performance (depositories, municipalities, insurance companies):  With earnings at a premium and minimizing unrealized portfolio losses imperative, have an action plan of how to position your portfolio for maximum institution benefit

Portfolio Management Resources: Are you taking full advantage of available resources? (Depositories, municipalities, insurance companies): Maybe there’s too much information, analytics and opinions available, but make sure you have a plan to efficiently and effectively maximize your time and your portfolio’s contribution to your institution.

Target Audience:
Banks, Municipalities, Credit Unions

Hunter Meisenheimer, CFA^®

Managing Director, Senior Mortgage Analyst
Fixed Income Research

Possible Topic Title(s):
Mortgage Market, Relative Value, Yield Curve Strategy, Portfolio Strategies, Primers on Fixed MBS, ARMs and CMOs

Brief Topic Description(s):
Mortgage Market Issues and Trends – GSE updates, spread, price and prepay risk and trends, current hot topics

Relative Value – Identify quality sectors and bond types for risk/return for current rates, rising/declining rates and curve shifts

Yield Curve Strategy – What factors are driving rates in the current market environment and how to position your portfolio to maximize its potential

Portfolio Strategies – Strategies to help improve portfolio performance, tools and reports to identify reinvestment opportunities, timely market commentary and sector analysis

Primers on Fixed MBS, ARMs and CMOs – Basic discussion for beginning investors

Target Audience:
Municipalities, Banks, Total Return, Credit Unions

Ellis Phifer, CFA^®, CMT

Managing Director
Total Return and Insurance Strategies

Possible Topic Title(s):
Fixed Income Strategies for the Current Economic Environment, Sector Valuations, Portfolio Strategy, Relative Value, Yield Curve Strategy, Total Return Ideas

Brief Topic Description(s):
Fixed Income Strategies for the Current Economic Environment: There’s always some uncertainty in the market. This presentation helps you make sense of what is affecting the market and sound ways to position your portfolio to take advantage of what the market is giving you.

Sector Valuations: We will discuss the various investment grade sectors and where and why certain attractive investments exist.

Portfolio Strategy: How an overall portfolio strategy should look now, as well as the tactical opportunities that currently exist.

Relative Value: We will discuss where relative value(s) exist(s) in the market today.

Yield Curve Strategy: Interest rate cycles last for years at a time, and ways to position your portfolio change as the curve twists and turns.

Total Return Ideas: We discuss which investment strategies and tactics will help you outperform on a total return basis.

Target Audience:
Economics, Municipalities, Total Return, Banks

Richard Szalkowski

Managing Director, Senior Muni Credit Analyst
Municipal Credit and Strategy Group

Possible Topic Title(s):
Nonprofit Hospital and Health Systems

Brief Topic Description(s):
Analyzing nonprofit hospital and health system credits. Reviewing credit trends and spreads for nonprofit hospitals and health systems.

Target Audience:
Municipalities, Banks, Total Return