1.23.2025 Chapter Meeting

Event Details:

10:30 AM - 11:00 AM:  Doors open - check in + networking - come early to network with your FPA colleagues

11:00 AM - 11:10 AM:  Welcome! Join us for the latest FPA updates & announcements

11:10 AM - 12:00 PM:  The Capital Markets & the Macroeconomic Environment: A View from 40,000 Feet | Robert Stirling Phipps

(1 CE: CFP, CPA, CIMA) 

This presentation will provide a 40,000-foot overview of the current macroeconomic environment, including economic growth and employment, current monetary and fiscal policies, inflation, investor sentiment, interest rates, the earnings outlook, and how this extraordinary array of factors is currently manifesting itself in the global capital markets. More importantly, the presentation will consider what this unique mix of factors may imply about the future.

The first segment of the presentation will be very macroeconomic in approach and starts with an overview of the domestic economy from the perspective of both coincident and leading economic indicators. This will lead into a discussion of the outlook for monetary policy and the implications of the surging levels of federal debt. The next segment will turn its attention to the capital markets themselves, and the implications of the current and anticipated macroeconomic environment. This section addresses the debt and credit markets from a primarily fundamental perspective and will be followed by a discussion of investor sentiment and how advisors can integrate sentiment measures into their portfolio strategies.

The presentation will conclude with an in-depth discussion of the domestic and foreign equity markets from a primarily fundamental perspective, and what historic precedent suggests about the outlook for 2025 and beyond. Particular emphasis will be placed on inflation, monetary policy, factors, valuations, earnings, and their likely implications for the equity markets.

12:00 PM - 12:30 PM: Lunch & Networking

12:30 PM - 1:20 PM: Digital Assets 2025 | Matthew Kolesky (1 CE: CFP, CPA, CIMA) 

How to invest in digital assets in 2025. What has changed in the last 2-3 years? What are the expectation for the US Regulatory environment in 2025 and beyond?

Speaker Bios

Robert Stirling Phipps

Director, Partner

Bob started working in the financial services industry immediately after graduating from Washington and Lee University in 1982. His resume includes over two decades serving as President, Director, Chief Investment Officer or Vice-President of different Registered Investment Advisor and Broker-Dealer firms, and he has served as an institutional portfolio manager since 1998. He currently serves as company Director and lead manager for Per Stirling’s SMA Growth Portfolio, and also authors the monthly Per Stirling Capital Outlook, which details the firm’s macro-economic perspective. In addition, Bob works directly as an advisor for a select group of individual clients, which includes primarily physicians, executives of technology-oriented firms, and retirees.

Matthew Kolesky, CDAA

President, Arbor Digital

Matthew serves as President and CCO for Arbor Capital and Arbor Digital.

Prior to joining Arbor in 2004, Matt worked at the Anchorage, Alaska office of Charles Schwab and Co., Inc. During his four-year tenure he became a licensed investment professional and piloted Schwab’s private client program offering in Alaska.

In 2010 Matt first explored Bitcoin by mining on his home computer. Later, he personally invested through the Mt. Gox exchange, which at the time was the world’s leading exchange for Bitcoin. After experiencing their collapse firsthand, Matt diversified into Ethereum in 2016. In the subsequent years, he studied cryptocurrencies and the quickly evolving Defi space. In 2018 he turned his attention to bringing the transformative powers of these technologies to the Arbor Capital Investment Committee, and in turn to their clients. Recognizing the gap that currently exists for an elegant solution for advisors and their clients to gain broad exposure to this emerging asset class, Arbor Digital was born in 2020.

Matt was born and raised in Alaska and moved to Houston in 2017 after spending 6 years in the UK. He regularly travels back to Alaska for work, family, and an occasional trip to Alyeska. He enjoys coaching, refereeing, and writing about soccer and volunteers his time with Junior Achievement. While he still calls Alaska home, he enjoys exploring the globe with his family.