By Ryan Hoffman
IMCA Communications

IMCA’s 2016 Investment Consultants Conference in New York, February 1‒2, offered attendees plenty of actionable insight into markets, politics, the geopolitical climate—and much more. Here are five must-read articles written about the conference you won’t want to miss.

1. Killing the DOL rule. There’s one surefire way the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule doesn’t see the light of day, said Washington pundit Andy Friedman. An inevitable “slew of court cases” challenging the Department of Labor’s authority could lead to an injunction against the rule. “If the industry gets one, the rule is dead,” Friedman said about a potential injunction. Read Jamie Green’s article on ThinkAdvisor.com, How to Kill DOL’s Fiduciary Rule: Andy Friedman, to learn why.

2. China is overlooked and misunderstood. Investing in China presents opportunity for those open to the risks, said Andy Rothman, investment strategist for Matthews Asia. The risks are real: The Shanghai index has posted 31 bear markets since 1994. Despite the risks, China’s dangers may be overestimated, Rothman says. Read John Waggoner’s article, China widely misunderstood, Rothman says, in InvestmentNews for complete details.
3. Advisors should get used to unsettling world problems. Advisors must adapt to the world’s geopolitical friction, said Ian Bremmer, president and founder of the Eurasia Group. Risks in the Middle East and Europe are not going away anytime soon and serious changes in the world order are taking place, he said. Some relatively good news? No matter who is elected president in the fall, markets will barely notice, according to Bremmer. Read Greg Bresiger’s article, The World Will Remain Volatile, in Financial Advisor for all the details.

4. Rubio-Kasich 2016? Donald Trump doesn’t have a strong base that will get out and vote for him and Ted Cruz’s lack of flexibility would doom him in a general election, Friedman said. Marco Rubio may be the right balance for the GOP candidate (he has focused on geopolitical issues that tend to unite people instead of social issues that polarize people), and Friedman predicts a Rubio-John Kasich ticket would give the Republicans the best chance to win. Read the entire article, Andrew Friedman: Republican “dream ticket” is Rubio-Kasich, on NexChange.com.

5. What to expect next on the fiduciary rule. Advisors need to start preparing for one of the biggest regulatory changes in years, said panelists Bonnie Treichel, an attorney at Retirement Law Group, and Daniel Kleinman, an attorney at Morgan Lewis & Brockius. All advisors should start brushing up on details and examining their books of business given how close the Department of Labor is to implementing a final fiduciary rule, Treichel said. Up next: The White House Office of Budget and Management has 30 days to respond to the revised version of the rule, submitted in late January. Read Andrew Welsch’s article in Financial Planning and

, What to Expect Next on Fiduciary Rule.

Click here for more conference media coverage, and join us for the IMCA 2016 Annual Conference—ACE, April 17‒20 in Orlando. Visit IMCA.org/ACE for more information.