Inside Money: Hot conference ideas for pool-lovers

Hard at work at the latest investment conference. Photo / Thinkstock

I will not be lounging poolside at the Marina Mandarin Hotel in Singapore over December 6-8 discussing big picture issues with all the other financial lizards.

Because of prior commitments I'm unable to attend the 3-Day MBA in Global Asset Allocation.

"Master the complex challenges in asset allocation, diversification and rebalancing - in just 3 days!" the emailed blurb promises. It's asset allocation, not brain surgery - three days is all you need.

Most days I receive invites to conferences like these, the often-boring subject matter dressed up with shiny, exotic locations. I'd like to go to them.

They're not all junkets, of course.

My former Australian publisher told me once a good conference is like a live version of a magazine: a mix of interesting content and advertising only with free drinks.

But there's also a strong vein of opportunism in conference design - I've helped with a couple and the trick seems to be to catch the latest trend, or 'hot' product at the right moment in its development.

Conference subjects can serve as leading indicators of what marketers want to sell you next year. If there's any truth in the broad generalisation here's a couple of investment ideas that might be coming our way in 2011.

This inaugural 'Green Investing Conference 2010', for example, is "seeking to present the latest research on investment criteria in sustainable development and on new findings and innovative projects in the field of green business". To find out what this is all about you'll have to go to Nice on the ritzy Cote d'Azur on December 10.

But if sustainability is cool for investors, China is hot. And conference conglomerate Terrapin, the mob also behind the 3-Day MBA, doesn't want to miss this boat, touting a talk-fest on what it claims is the next must-have in investment product: China funds denominated in real Chinese money (the renminbi or RMB).

"The liberalization of China RMB is the latest buzz word in the financial industry," runs the Terrapin promo. "The world is readying itself for the explosion of RMB products and solutions."

A more balanced view on the RMB fund 'explosion' can be found here where Stan Abrams, a lawyer based in Beijing says: "If RMB funds, in addition to just China investment, is pronounced hot, the money will follow, legal risk be damned."

See you by the pool.