Dr. John Rutledge speaks to groups of all sizes around the world. From individual investors to CEOs, Dr. Rutledge delivers complex material with passion, clarity, and humor. He tailors each presentation to the issues that are important for the audience; giving them what they need to take action and get results. Dr. John Rutledge speaks on:
- Thermoeconomics
- The Impact of Telecom Deregulation on Growth and Employment
- Technology Drives the Economy
- Weather Map Investing
- Economic and Financial Outlook
- The Reagan Legacy
- The Heat Seeking Investor
- Building, Managing, and Owning a Private Company
- Strategies to Protect and Grow Shareholder Value
- Dividend Tax Cut
- Rebuilding Iraq
- Global Perspectives on Business and Investing
- Timeless Principles of Leadership
- Failing Your Way to Success
Thermoeconomics
The principal of arbitrage lies at the heart of economic analysis. Arbitrage, in turn, stands on the strong shoulders of thermodynamics, the most robust area in all of physics. Thermodynamics says simply that temperature differentials cannot persist over time between objects in physical communication. The end result is thermal equilibrium--the state in which there is no further tendency for temperature to change.
Almost all activity in life reflects the physical manifestations of thermodynamic processes. It is why the chemical reactions occur in our cells, sunlight leads to photosynthesis, and why volcanoes erupt.. And it is why weather systems form. Weather systems are the best and simplest metaphor for economic change. We all know what happens when high and low pressure systems try to occupy the same space--thunder, lightning, tornadoes, and hurricanes.
I think of investing as an exercise in meteorology. My job is to identify the thermodynamic events--usually changes in tax rates, government spending, regulatory policies, or monetary policy--that lead to localized temperature or pressure differentials. These set up the arbitrage situations we use to make money.
The Impact of Telecom Deregulation on Growth and Employment
The US Telecom industry stands ready to commit $90 billion in capital to deploy high speed communications systems for small businesses and the home. But invasive FCC regulations, forced access rules, and price controls, have frozen capital spending plans like a fly in amber. Dr. Rutledge explains the impact of deregulation on investment, growth, and jobs, and discusses the outlook for deregulation and growth.
Technology Drives the Economy
Technology has become the weapon of choice in the battle for global competitiveness and the U.S. is losing the battle. Using his Asset Market Shift framework, Dr. Rutledge discusses the impact of technology on the economy and the necessary changes for the U.S. to be a leader again. The US used to be the world in technology. The US also led the world in productivity growth. This is not a coincidence. Dr. Rutledge discusses the factors behind the technology boom of the past 20 years and its effects on employment, inflation, interest rates, and asset prices. He highlights the role the Fed and regulators played in the tech boom and the bust of the last three years and discusses new developments in the telecom, technology, and media sectors.
Economic and Financial Outlook
The key to predicting the direction of the economy, interest rates, and stock prices is understanding the impact of policy on asset prices. Dr. Rutledge shows you how to become your own economic forecaster by understanding the massive restructuring of the US economy in the 1980s and 1990s, the tech boom and bust, and the impact of terrorism, the Iraq War, global deflation, and the dividend tax cut on growth, inflation, interest rates, stock prices, and the dollar.
The Heat-Seeking Investor
Dr. Rutledge focuses on how the investment markets work and what people should do to build wealth in today's erratic markets based on the simple, timeless principles of thermodynamics. Dr. Rutledge describes the factors that determine a company's intrinsic value and tells the audience how to be successful value investors. Some of the topics he covers are: the 19-year Bull Market of falling interest rates and rising stock prices; the role of regulation and the Fed in the dotcom boom and bust; the impact of 9/11; governance scandals; the Iraq War; and global deflation. Dr. Rutledge explains the importance of controlling Intrinsic Risk rather than volatility. He will outline which sectors, industries, and companies remain undervalued and why, and the role of real estate, private equity, and hedge funds in allocating assets.
Building, Managing, and Owning a Private Company
Dr. Rutledge knows what it feels like to own and run a business. Over the past 20 years, as the founder of two private equity funds, he has been owner, investor, chairman, CEO, or board member of more than three dozen companies. This experience served as the crucible of his Forbes Business Strategy column for more than a decade. The result is a set of principles to help the owner or manager of a private company build, manage, own, and harvest value for their families. Dr. Rutledge shares these principles and his personal experiences to help business owners and managers think through where to take their companies in today's economy.
Strategies to Protect and Grow Shareholder Value
For more than a decade, Dr. Rutledge wrote his Business Strategy column in Forbes to teach managers how to preserve and grow the value of their businesses using lessons he learned while advising hundreds of public and private companies over thirty years. Topics include creating and managing brand equity, pricing for growth, managing foreign operations, controlling cash flow, incentive compensation, stock options, working with lenders, raising capital, how to conduct a value audit, governance, the role of the CEO, and how to be a good director.
Global Perspectives on Business and Investing
Dr. Rutledge draws on the lessons and observations of 15 million miles of travel over 30 years to help the audience understand doing business and making investments in a global economy. He discusses economic growth, inflation/deflation, interest rates, stock prices and currencies around the world, and managing foreign operations. He includes the role of emerging markets in global investing and the appropriate asset allocation for a global investor.
Timeless Principles of Leadership
In thirty years of advising business and investors around the world, Dr. Rutledge has seen true leaders succeed while others fail. Dr. Rutledge uses the lessons he has learned from these experiences to help people take control of their businesses, their investments and their lives.
Failing Your Way to Success
Failing is a necessary part of success. It's failing small first, and winning big later, that makes a real winner. In this lecture, Dr. Rutledge draws on his own experience, from short-order cook, to truck driver, to advisor/investor, illustrated with recent advances in cognitive science, to help people understand why taking risks is necessary for growth, and how to teach young people which risks are worth taking.
