This course is an MQ University sponsored event.

Please email Jim if you would like to register after March 5. 

Description

This course is designed to provide a framework for understanding how your client’s “two brains” have different needs. These conflicting needs can override your best efforts to alter the financial beliefs and behaviors that undermine their life satisfaction and sense of well-being.

However, by adopting a new perspective and new ways of interacting with your clients, you can help your clients view their financial and life goals with new eyes. Learn how to be a more effective facilitator of the positive changes that your clients want to make and will be in their own best interests.

Once you complete this course, you will come away with:

• New tools to help you think and talk about the obstacles that block your clients’ progress toward their satisfaction and sense of well-being
• A new and fun way to guide your clients’ financial behavior
• Effective tools to help you  understand your own thinking so you can move your practice to the next level

Each classroom will be limited to 12 students.

CFP® CE Credit

This course has been accepted for 10.0 CFP Board CE hours per the CFP Board. Requirements to receive the CFP Board CE include the following:

• Listen to all four recorded lectures
• Complete assigned reading in Switch
• Interact with instructor and other students via online discussion forum in response to posted topics and questions
• Complete online learning assessments (quizzes)

Optional:

• Review additional resources
• Read additional articles or books from recommended reading list
• Participate in real-time Q&A sessions

Tuition

This MQU course is available to everyone.

Please note that the fee does not include a copy of the reading material. You are responsible for acquiring your own copy of the text, Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, by Chip and Dan Heath.

• MQ Partners: $300.00
• MQ VIP Firm Partners: $240.00
• Non-Profit: $240.00
• Full-Time Student: $240.00
• Others: $400.00

Instructor

Thom Allison, CFP® – Thom’s strongest motivation as a financial planner is helping people live fulfilling lives. He joined The Mather Group in November 2021 with the acquisition of Allison Spielman Advisors (ASA), which Thom had founded in 1997. Prior to ASA, Thom was a Founding Partner at Financial Security Group. Thom became a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional in 1988. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Marketing from Loyola University in Chicago and his MBA degree with an emphasis in Finance from the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater.

12.0 CFP CE pending acceptance by the CFP Board. 

12.0 AFC CEU accepted by AFCPE. 

MQ University Course

Derek Hagen, CFA, CFP®, CFT-I™, FBS®, CIPM will guide students through an eight-week course that will begin on October 12 and conclude on December 8, 2024.

An MQ Partnership is not required to register for this course!

PLEASE NOTE: We request you acquire a copy of Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change and Grow, 4th edition, by William Miller and Stephen Rollnick (As of September 3, 2024, this book is on sale via Amazon for $35 – 46% off the list price!). If you already own a copy of the 3rd edition, you do not need to buy the 4th edition!

Purpose

MI for Advisors: Motivational Interviewing Bootcamp is a comprehensive course designed to equip financial professionals with the skills and techniques of Motivational Interviewing (MI), an evidence-based communication method that helps clients find the motivation to make positive decisions and achieve their objectives.

MI is particularly valuable for understanding client motivation, addressing ambivalence, and supporting clients in making informed decisions. This course will introduce you to MI tools to help you integrate MI into your practice and help you build stronger client relationships, improve communication, and enhance client trust and satisfaction.

Throughout the course,  you’ll learn how to apply MI techniques through a combination of lectures, practical exercises, reading, and Q and A calls. By the end of the course, you will be equipped to effectively motivate and guide your clients toward their objectives, resulting in better outcomes for both you and your clients.

Course Requirements

Each session of this five-session, ten-week course will include:

• A recorded lecture
• Required reading
• Online interaction with the instructor and students
• Completion of an online learning assessment

This course is self-paced; however, requirements for each session must completed within the weekly time frame.  Additional instruction will be provided via the online virtual MQ Classroom platform.

About Derek Hagen, CFA, CFP®, CFT-I™, FBS®, CIPM

Learning Objectives

• Learn the principles of reflective listening
• Improve your listening skills
• Understand MI principles
• Apply the core skills of MI to your practice
• Understand the stages of MI and how they relate to your clients
• Learn to listen for and invite change talk to reflect it back
• Understand and navigate client ambivalence
• Facilitate and support client autonomy
• Offer advice in an MI-consistent way

Session Overview

Live Q&A Sessions (times TBD):

• November 7
• December 2

What to Expect

CFP CE Credit

12.0 CFP CE pending acceptance by the CFP Board.

Requirements to receive the CFP CE include the following:

• Watch all recorded video lectures
• Complete assigned reading
• Interact with instructor and fellow students via online discussion forum in response to posted topics and questions
• Complete online learning assessments (acceptable passing score is 70%)

Tuition

This MQU course is open to MQ Partners and all financial professionals and educators.

Additional Information

Registration is now open!

Please email us if you have questions!

A Money Quotient University Course

MQU is pleased to offer “Towards Aware and Values-Centered Investing” to a new group of students. This ten-week, five-session course will begin on September 10, 2022 and conclude on November 20, 2022.

Marco has updated his lectures and course materials. As such, course alumni are invited to register at a discounted rate! See below for details.

Purpose

To help financial planners gain an understanding of investment options and tools that are available to help clients truly align their financial and life plans with their values.

Instructor

Description

Click here to watch the first five minutes of Marco’s first lecture. In this video, he discusses his background and motivation, and shares information about the course structure and descriptions of each course session.

Since the financial crisis of 2008, there has been a growing sentiment of skepticism and mistrust aimed at Wall Street and our globalized and opaque financial system.  As a result, a growing number of clients and prospective clients are looking for ways to truly align their portfolios with their values, and are dissatisfied with investing all of their assets in the stocks and bonds of large multinational corporations.

This disconnect between personal values and traditional investment choices is becoming even more glaring due to an increased awareness of the role our investments play in shaping the world we live in.  Media attention and a number of movements (i.e., Slow Money, Occupy, 350.org, and re-localization movement) are all adding fuel to the fire of discontent with business as usual on Wall Street.

However, an honest evaluation of a majority of the stocks and bonds that comprise a typical socially- or environmentally-responsible portfolio would also fail to make a direct link to the issues and causes that your clients care about most.  In addition, even the sincerest and most well-intentioned values-based financial planning process often falls short in the implementation phase.

This course is designed for financial professionals who are ready to engage in out-of-the-box thinking regarding options for clients who want to  a) know their investments are doing no harm; and/or b) actively engage in making the world a better place via their investments.

Learning Objectives

Participants who complete the course requirements will:

• Understand the role finance played in shaping the geopolitics of the last five centuries worldwide
• Understand ­­the problems with our current financial system and the role our investments play in creating some of the largest societal challenges we collectively face
• Understand the application of ecological economics techniques to the quantification of the natural capital subsidy to our economic growth and financial returns
• Realize the importance of being aware of the non-financial impact of all our/our clients’ investments
• Understand the money system, the money creation process, the banking sector’s incentives and activities, the role and actions of the central bank, their collective effect on asset class valuations and implications for investing
• Develop a healthy skepticism of traditional capital market expectations and understand the importance of tactical asset allocation especially around time characterized by secular shifts
• Integrate non-financial considerations and clients’ specific personal values into the portfolio management process
• Understanding the importance of an expanded understanding of fiduciary responsibility to include the non-financial impact of clients’ investments
• Introduce the concepts of meta-allocation and regenerative investing component of a client’s portfolio

Course Requirements

Each session of this five-session, ten-week course will include:

• A recorded lecture
• Required reading
• Online interaction with the instructor and students
• Completion of an online learning assessment

This course is self-paced; however, online interaction via a discussion forum will include weekly deadlines.  All requirements for each session must completed within the 2-week time-frame.  Additional instruction will be included in the on-line virtual MQ Classroom platform (login information will be provided upon registration).

Session Overview

(*Note: you are responsible for obtaining your own copy of Sapiens; the other materials will be provided to you via downloadable links.)

Session #1              September 10 – September 25, 2022

Awakening to the Problems of Conventional Finance

Required Reading:
*Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Human Kind. Harper Collins Publishers 201; Chapter 16: The Capitalist Creed (pp. 305-333)

Key points:

• Understanding the difference between capital and wealth
• Understanding the role finance played in shaping the geopolitics of the last five centuries worldwide
• Understanding the role the invention in the 16^th century of the joint-stock corporation played in the imperial and colonial expansion of European nation states
• Understanding the role join-stock corporations played in fueling the transatlantic slave trade
• Understanding the application of ecological economics techniques to the quantification of the natural capital subsidy to our economic growth and financial returns
• Understanding the role our investments play in the erosion of the natural capital and therefore its inability to be sustained even within the typical time-horizon of an average client
• Realizing the importance of being aware of the non-financial impact of all our/our clients’ investments

Session #2              September 24 – October 9, 2022

Understanding Ecological Limits, Money Creation and the Federal Reserve

Required reading:
*McLeay, Radia, Thomas. “Money Creation in the Modern Economy.”

Key points:

• Understanding the hierarchical and hybrid nature of our money system
• Understanding the process of money creation and destruction in a modern economy
• Understanding the mechanism by which lending by commercial banks create new broad money in the economy
• Overcoming the most common misconceptions about money
• Understanding the role the central bank plays in managing the money supply
• Understanding the types of risks limiting the lending activities of commercial banks
• Understanding who determines the amount of base money in a modern economy
• Understanding the effects of Quantitative Easing (QE) by central banks and why it had no effect on inflation
• Understanding the effects of QE on capital market valuations and on the real estate market
• Understanding the impact the exceptionally low interest policy set by central banks on the leverage in the overall financial system and the increase in systemic risk
• Understanding the effects on the stock market of the unprecedented share-bay back by public companies in the US in the last five years
• Understanding the carbon math and the issue of stranded carbon assets and its implication for the proper valuation of clients’ portfolios

Session #3            October 8 – October 23, 2022

Challenging Capital Markets Expectations – A Holistic Approach to Portfolio Management

Required reading:
*The Economist. “The Long and Short of It – Getting It Right in Two Years and Ten.”
*Rich, Nathaniel. “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare.”

Key points:

• Understanding the relationship between valuations and market returns
• Expanding the understanding and definition of risk and return to include non-financial considerations
• Determining the clients’ liquidity profile and needs
• Understanding the difference between a client’s risk tolerance and her ability to bear risk
• Assessing clients’ abilities to bear risk
• Integrating non-financial considerations and the clients’ specific personal values into the portfolio management process
• Understanding that the compensation for asset classes systematic risk changes over time and can turn negative
• Developing a healthy skepticism of traditional capital market expectations and understanding the importance of tactical asset allocation especially around time characterized by secular shifts
• Understanding the importance of an expanded understanding of fiduciary responsibility to include the non-financial impact of clients’ investments

Session #4              October 22 – November 6, 2022

Implementing Aware Values-Centered Investing

Required reading:
*Vangelisti, Marco. “What returns can we expect from local investing?”

Key points:

• Understanding the common characteristics of the investments belonging to the same asset class
• Understanding the implications of the difference in the rate of growth of the global economy vs. that of financial capital
• Computing risk-adjusted returns of an investment given the probability of its possible return outcomes
• Appreciating the motivations behind local investing
• Understanding the added dimensions necessary to move towards holistic portfolio management
• Defining no-harm investing and impact investing
• Identifying no-harm investments and providing a few examples of them in various asset classes and risk categories
• Identifying impact investments and providing a few examples of them in various asset classes and risk categories
• Guiding clients through the process of building their Personal Investment Compass
• Incorporating holistic portfolio management practices into their own processes
• NEW: Examining an example of an actual Personal Investment Compass for an MQ financial planner who completed this course in 2020

Session #5              November 5 – November 20, 2022

Regenerative Investing and the True Path to Financial Freedom

Required reading:
*Tasch, Woody. Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money – Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered.

Key points:

• Understanding the importance of soil health for the survival of Homo Sapiens
• Understanding the link between conventional finance and soil erosion
• Identifying regenerative investments and providing a few examples of them in various asset classes and risk categories
• Determine the prudent allocation to regenerative investing based on the client’s ability to bear risk
• Understanding the difference between impact investing and regenerative investing
• Understanding the psychological costs of participating in the positional game
• Understanding the importance of an expanded understanding of fiduciary responsibility to include the non-financial impact of clients’ investments
• Introducing the concepts of meta-allocation and regenerative investing component of a client’s portfolio
• NEW: Learning from an example of a regenerative investment portfolio implemented by an MQ financial planner; learn lessons from a Slow Money journey in northern California

Q&A

We will also schedule two live online Q&A sessions with Marco Vangelisti! During these live one-hour sessions, we invite you to share your thoughts and ask questions.

Please note that these are optional sessions intended to supplement the course materials. Attendance is not mandatory, but we strongly encourage your participation.

Specific dates for these sessions are to be determined, but we anticipate scheduling one mid-course, and one shortly before the course concludes.

CFP® CE Credit

6.5 CFP® CE, as accepted by the CFP® Board. Requirements to receive the CFP® CE include the following:

• Watch all recorded video lectures
• Complete assigned reading as listed above (*note: you are responsible for obtaining your own copy of Sapiens; the other materials will be provided to you via downloadable links)
• Interact with instructor and fellow students via online discussion forum in response to posted topics and questions
• Complete online learning assessments (acceptable passing score is 70%)

Tuition

This MQU course is open to MQ Partners and other financial professionals & financial educators.

MQ University Course

MQU is pleased to offer “Towards Aware and Values-Centered Investing” to a new group of students. This ten-week, five-session course will begin on April 29, 2023 and conclude on July 16, 2023.

Course instructor Marco Vangelisti has updated his lectures and course materials. As such, course alumni are invited to register at a discounted rate! Pending approval, we expect the CFP CE for this updated version to be increased to 13.5 CE. Please see below for details.

Purpose

The course is designed to help financial advisors and financial planners gain an understanding of investment options and tools available, beyond those offered by Wall Street and ESG funds, to help clients truly align their financial and life plans with their values.

Instructor

Course alumnus Angela Barbash, co-founder of Revalue (a fee-only RIA) will join Marco as a guest lecturer. She will share her practice management insights on lessons learned from incorporating regenerative investments into an existing practice of over 160 clients, how advisors can advocate for and contribute to the advancement of the necessary infrastructure, and the latest developments within the values-driven investment advisory ecosystem.

Click here to watch the first five minutes of Marco’s first lecture. In this video, he discusses his background and motivation, and shares information about the course structure and descriptions of each course session.

Since the financial crisis of 2008, there has been a growing sentiment of skepticism and mistrust aimed at Wall Street and our globalized and opaque financial system.  As a result, a growing number of clients and prospective clients are looking for ways to truly align their portfolios with their values, and are dissatisfied with investing all of their assets in the stocks and bonds of large multinational corporations, either directly or bundled in mutual funds even if labeled as ESG.

This disconnect between personal values and traditional investment choices is becoming even more glaring due to an increased awareness of the role our investments play in shaping the world we live in.

An honest evaluation of a majority of the stocks and bonds that comprise a typical socially- or environmentally-responsible portfolio would also fail to make a direct link to the issues and causes that your clients care about most.  In addition, even the sincerest and most well-intentioned values-based financial planning process often falls short in the implementation phase.

This course is designed for financial professionals who are ready to engage in out-of-the-box thinking regarding options for clients who want to  a) know their investments are doing no harm; and/or b) actively engage in making the world a better place via their investments.

Learning Objectives

Participants who complete the course requirements will:

• Understand the role finance played in shaping the geopolitics of the last five centuries worldwide
• Understand ­­the problems with our current financial system and the role our investments play in creating some of the largest societal challenges we collectively face
• Understand how our economic growth and financial returns are subsidized by the destruction of the natural capital
• Realize the importance of being aware of the non-financial impact of all our/our clients’ investments
• Understand the money system, the money creation process, the banking sector’s incentives and activities, the role and actions of the central bank, their collective effect on asset class valuations and implications for investing
• Develop a healthy skepticism of traditional capital market expectations and understand the importance of tactical asset allocation especially around time characterized by secular shifts
• Integrate non-financial considerations and clients’ specific personal values into the portfolio management process
• Understanding the importance of an expanded understanding of fiduciary responsibility to include the non-financial impact of clients’ investments
• Introduce the concepts of meta-allocation and restorative investing component of a client’s portfolio

Course Requirements

Each session of this five-session, ten-week course will include:

• A recorded lecture
• Required reading
• Online interaction with the instructor and students
• Completion of an online learning assessment

This course is self-paced; however, online interaction via a discussion forum will include weekly deadlines.  All requirements for each session must completed within the 2-week time-frame.  Additional instruction will be included in the on-line virtual MQ Classroom platform (login information will be provided upon registration).

Session Overview

(*Note: you are responsible for obtaining your own copy of Sapiens; the other materials will be provided to you via downloadable links.)

Session #1              April 29 – May 14, 2023

Awakening to the Problems of Conventional Finance

Required Reading:
*Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Human Kind. Harper Collins Publishers 201; Chapter 16: The Capitalist Creed (pp. 305-333)

Key points:

• Understanding the difference between capital and wealth
• Understanding the role finance played in shaping the geopolitics of the last five centuries worldwide
• Understanding the role the invention in the 16^th century of the joint-stock corporation played in the imperial and colonial expansion of European nation states
• Understanding the role join-stock corporations played in fueling the transatlantic slave trade
• Understand how our economic growth and financial returns are subsidized by the destruction of the natural capital
• Understanding the role our investments play in the erosion of the natural capital and therefore its inability to be sustained even within the typical time-horizon of an average client
• Realizing the importance of being aware of the non-financial impact of all our/our clients’ investments

Session #2              May 13 – May 28, 2023

Understanding Ecological Limits, Money Creation and the Federal Reserve

Required reading:
*McLeay, Radia, Thomas. “Money Creation in the Modern Economy.”

Key points:

• Understanding the hierarchical and hybrid nature of our money system
• Understanding the process of money creation and destruction in a modern economy
• Understanding the mechanism by which lending by commercial banks create new broad money in the economy
• Overcoming the most common misconceptions about money
• Understanding the role the central bank plays in managing the money supply
• Understanding the types of risks limiting the lending activities of commercial banks
• Understanding who determines the amount of base money in a modern economy
• Understanding the effects of Quantitative Easing (QE) by central banks and why it had no effect on inflation for the first 12 years
• Understanding the effects of QE on capital market valuations and on the real estate market
• Understanding the impact the exceptionally low interest policy set by central banks had on the leverage in the overall financial system and the increase in systemic risk now that interest rates are being normalized
• Understanding the effects on the stock market of the unprecedented share-bay back by public companies in the US in the last five years

Session #3            May 27 – June 18, 2023

(Please note: this session is one week longer due to the Memorial Day holiday)

Challenging Capital Markets Expectations – A Holistic Approach to Portfolio Management

Required reading:
*The Economist. “The Long and Short of It – Getting It Right in Two Years and Ten.”
*Rich, Nathaniel. “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare.”

Key points:

• Understanding the relationship between valuations and market returns
• Expanding the understanding and definition of risk and return to include non-financial considerations
• Determining the clients’ liquidity profile and needs
• Understanding the difference between a client’s risk tolerance and her ability to bear risk
• Assessing clients’ abilities to bear risk
• Integrating non-financial considerations and the clients’ specific personal values into the portfolio management process
• Understanding that the compensation for asset classes systematic risk changes over time and can turn negative
• Developing a healthy skepticism of traditional capital market expectations and understanding the importance of tactical asset allocation especially around time characterized by secular shifts
• Understanding the importance of an expanded understanding of fiduciary responsibility to include the non-financial impact of clients’ investments

Session #4              June 17 – July 2, 2023

Implementing Aware Values-Centered Investing

Required reading:
*Vangelisti, Marco. “What returns can we expect from local investing?”
*Christian, Leslie. “Prudent Woman”

Key points:

• Understanding the implications of the difference in the rate of growth of the global economy vs. that of financial capital
• Computing risk-adjusted returns of an investment given the probability of its possible return outcomes
• Appreciating the motivations behind local investing
• Understanding the added dimensions necessary to move towards holistic portfolio management
• Defining no-harm investing and positive investing
• Identifying no-harm investments and providing a few examples of them in various asset classes and risk categories
• Identifying positive investments and providing a few examples of them in various asset classes and risk categories
• Guiding clients through the process of building their Personal Investment Compass
• Incorporating holistic portfolio management practices into their own processes

Session #5            July 1 – July 16, 2023

Restorative Investing and the True Path to Financial Freedom

Required reading:
*Tasch, Woody. Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money – Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered.

*Vangelisti, Marco. Social Justice Investing – Is there such a thing?

Key points:

• Understanding the importance of soil health for the survival of Homo Sapiens
• Understanding the link between conventional finance and soil erosion
• Identifying restorative investments and providing a few examples of them in various asset classes and risk categories
• Determine the prudent allocation to restorative investing based on the client’s ability to bear risk
• Understanding the difference between impact investing and restorative investing
• Understanding the psychological costs of participating in the positional game
• Understanding the importance of an expanded understanding of fiduciary responsibility to include the non-financial impact of clients’ investments
• Introducing the concepts of meta-allocation and restorative investing component of a client’s portfolio
• NEW: Learning from an example of a restorative investment portfolio implemented by an MQ financial planner; learn lessons from a Slow Money journey in northern California

Q&A

We will also schedule two live online Q&A sessions with Marco Vangelisti! During these live one-hour sessions, we invite you to share your thoughts and ask questions.

Please note that these are optional sessions intended to supplement the course materials. Attendance is not mandatory, but we strongly encourage your participation.

Specific dates for these sessions are to be determined, but we anticipate scheduling one mid-course, and one shortly before the course concludes.

CFP CE Credit

13.5 CFP CE, pending acceptance by the CFP Board.

Requirements to receive the CFP CE include the following:

• Watch all recorded video lectures
• Complete assigned reading as listed above (*note: you are responsible for obtaining your own copy of Sapiens; the other materials will be provided to you via downloadable links)
• Interact with instructor and fellow students via online discussion forum in response to posted topics and questions
• Complete online learning assessments (acceptable passing score is 70%)

Tuition

This MQU course is open to MQ Partners and other financial professionals & financial educators.

Additional Information

Want to learn more before committing to this multi-session, self-paced online course?

In this MQRE webinar recording, Marco Vangelisti and Johnny Roland provide insight regarding what students can expect if enrolled in the full 10-week, 5-session MQU course!

• Webinar Recording 
  • Marco Vangelisti’s Slides
  • Johnny Roland’s Slides

• Essential Knowledge For Transition – Learn more about Marco Vangelisti and his work in Aware and No-Harm Investing™
• Change Makers Interview: Marco Vangelisti 

Please note: The course began on Monday, January 18; however, registration is still open!

A Money Quotient University Course

MQU is pleased to offer “Towards Aware and Values-Centered Investing” to a new group of students. This ten-week, five-session course is scheduled to begin on Monday, January 18, 2021!

Purpose

To help financial planners gain an understanding of investment options and tools that are available to help clients truly align their financial and life plans with their values.

Instructor

Description

Click here to watch the first five minutes of Marco’s first lecture. In this video, he discusses his background and motivation, and shares information about the course structure and descriptions of each course session.

Since the financial crisis of 2008, there has been a growing sentiment of skepticism and mistrust aimed at Wall Street and our globalized and opaque financial system.  As a result, a growing number of clients and prospective clients are looking for ways to truly align their portfolios with their values, and are dissatisfied with investing all of their assets in the stocks and bonds of large multinational corporations.

This disconnect between personal values and traditional investment choices is becoming even more glaring due to an increased awareness of the role our investments play in shaping the world we live in.  Media attention and a number of movements (i.e., Slow Money, Occupy, 350.org, and re-localization movement) are all adding fuel to the fire of discontent with business as usual on Wall Street.

However, an honest evaluation of a majority of the stocks and bonds that comprise a typical socially- or environmentally-responsible portfolio would also fail to make a direct link to the issues and causes that your clients care about most.  In addition, even the sincerest and most well-intentioned values-based financial planning process often falls short in the implementation phase.

This course is designed for financial professionals who are ready to engage in out-of-the-box thinking regarding options for clients who want to  a) know their investments are doing no harm; and/or b) actively engage in making the world a better place via their investments.

Learning Objectives

Participants who complete the course requirements will:

• Understand the role finance played in shaping the geopolitics of the last five centuries worldwide
• Understand ­­the problems with our current financial system and the role our investments play in creating some of the largest societal challenges we collectively face
• Understand the application of ecological economics techniques to the quantification of the natural capital subsidy to our economic growth and financial returns
• Realize the importance of being aware of the non-financial impact of all our/our clients’ investments
• Understand the money system, the money creation process, the banking sector’s incentives and activities, the role and actions of the central bank, their collective effect on asset class valuations and implications for investing
• Develop a healthy skepticism of traditional capital market expectations and understand the importance of tactical asset allocation especially around time characterized by secular shifts
• Integrate non-financial considerations and clients’ specific personal values into the portfolio management process
• Understanding the importance of an expanded understanding of fiduciary responsibility to include the non-financial impact of clients’ investments
• Introduce the concepts of meta-allocation and regenerative investing component of a client’s portfolio

Course Requirements

Each session of this five-session, ten-week course will include:

• A recorded lecture
• Required reading
• Online interaction with the instructor and students
• Completion of an online learning assessment

This course is self-paced; however, online interaction via a discussion forum will include weekly deadlines.  All requirements for each session must completed within the 2-week time-frame.  Additional instruction will be included in the on-line Google Classroom platform (login information will be provided upon registration).

Session Overview

(*Note: you are responsible for obtaining your own copy of Sapiens; the other materials will be provided to you via downloadable links.)

Session #1              January 18 – January 31, 2021

Awakening to the Problems of Conventional Finance

Required Reading:
*Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Human Kind. Harper Collins Publishers 201; Chapter 16: The Capitalist Creed (pp. 305-333)

Key points:

• Understanding the difference between capital and wealth
• Understanding the role finance played in shaping the geopolitics of the last five centuries worldwide
• Understanding the role the invention in the 16^th century of the joint-stock corporation played in the imperial and colonial expansion of European nation states
• Understanding the role join-stock corporations played in fueling the transatlantic slave trade
• Understanding the application of ecological economics techniques to the quantification of the natural capital subsidy to our economic growth and financial returns
• Understanding the role our investments play in the erosion of the natural capital and therefore its inability to be sustained even within the typical time-horizon of an average client
• Realizing the importance of being aware of the non-financial impact of all our/our clients’ investments

Session #2              February 1 – February 14, 2021

Understanding Ecological Limits, Money Creation and the Federal Reserve

Required reading:
*McLeay, Radia, Thomas. “Money Creation in the Modern Economy.”

Key points:

• Understanding the hierarchical and hybrid nature of our money system
• Understanding the process of money creation and destruction in a modern economy
• Understanding the mechanism by which lending by commercial banks create new broad money in the economy
• Overcoming the most common misconceptions about money
• Understanding the role the central bank plays in managing the money supply
• Understanding the types of risks limiting the lending activities of commercial banks
• Understanding who determines the amount of base money in a modern economy
• Understanding the effects of Quantitative Easing (QE) by central banks and why it had no effect on inflation
• Understanding the effects of QE on capital market valuations and on the real estate market
• Understanding the impact the exceptionally low interest policy set by central banks on the leverage in the overall financial system and the increase in systemic risk
• Understanding the effects on the stock market of the unprecedented share-bay back by public companies in the US in the last five years
• Understanding the carbon math and the issue of stranded carbon assets and its implication for the proper valuation of clients’ portfolios

Session #3             February 15 – February 28, 2021

Challenging Capital Markets Expectations – A Holistic Approach to Portfolio Management

Required reading:
*The Economist. “The Long and Short of It – Getting It Right in Two Years and Ten.”
*Rich, Nathaniel. “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare.”

Key points:

• Understanding the relationship between valuations and market returns
• Expanding the understanding and definition of risk and return to include non-financial considerations
• Determining the clients’ liquidity profile and needs
• Understanding the difference between a client’s risk tolerance and her ability to bear risk
• Assessing clients’ abilities to bear risk
• Integrating non-financial considerations and the clients’ specific personal values into the portfolio management process
• Understanding that the compensation for asset classes systematic risk changes over time and can turn negative
• Developing a healthy skepticism of traditional capital market expectations and understanding the importance of tactical asset allocation especially around time characterized by secular shifts
• Understanding the importance of an expanded understanding of fiduciary responsibility to include the non-financial impact of clients’ investments

Session #4              March 1 – March 14, 2021

Implementing Aware Values-Centered Investing

Required reading:
*Vangelisti, Marco. “What returns can we expect from local investing?”

Key points:

• Understanding the common characteristics of the investments belonging to the same asset class
• Understanding the implications of the difference in the rate of growth of the global economy vs. that of financial capital
• Computing risk-adjusted returns of an investment given the probability of its possible return outcomes
• Appreciating the motivations behind local investing
• Understanding the added dimensions necessary to move towards holistic portfolio management
• Defining no-harm investing and impact investing
• Identifying no-harm investments and providing a few examples of them in various asset classes and risk categories
• Identifying impact investments and providing a few examples of them in various asset classes and risk categories
• Guiding clients through the process of building their Personal Investment Compass
• Incorporating holistic portfolio management practices into their own processes

Session #5              March 15 – March 28, 2021

Regenerative Investing and the True Path to Financial Freedom

Required reading:
*Tasch, Woody. Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money – Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered.

Key points:

• Understanding the importance of soil health for the survival of Homo Sapiens
• Understanding the link between conventional finance and soil erosion
• Identifying regenerative investments and providing a few examples of them in various asset classes and risk categories
• Determine the prudent allocation to regenerative investing based on the client’s ability to bear risk
• Understanding the difference between impact investing and regenerative investing
• Understanding the psychological costs of participating in the positional game
• Understanding the importance of an expanded understanding of fiduciary responsibility to include the non-financial impact of clients’ investments
• Introducing the concepts of meta-allocation and regenerative investing component of a client’s portfolio

Q&A

We will also schedule two live online Q&A sessions with Marco Vangelisti! During these live one-hour sessions, we invite you to share your thoughts and ask questions.

Please note that these are optional sessions intended to supplement the course materials. Attendance is not mandatory, but we strongly encourage your participation.

Specific dates for these sessions are to be determined, but we anticipate scheduling one mid-course, and one shortly before the course concludes.

CFP® CE Credit

6.5 CFP® CE, as accepted by the CFP® Board. Requirements to receive the CFP® CE include the following:

• Watch all five recorded video lectures
• Complete assigned reading as listed above (*note: you are responsible for obtaining your own copy of Sapiens; the other materials will be provided to you via downloadable links)
• Interact with instructor and fellow students via online discussion forum in response to posted topics and questions
• Complete online learning assessments (acceptable passing score is 70%)

Tuition

This MQU course is open to MQ Partners and other financial professionals & financial educators.