ALTERNATIVE ASSET CLASSES - HEDGE FUNDS, PRIVATE EQUITY, PRIVATE CREDIT, VENTURE CAPITAL

• Hedge Fund Conundrum & the Challenge of Finding Alpha: Why have so many funds been failing / lagging the indices? What does it take to survive and thrive amid rising US Treasury bond yields and a bubbly US equities market?

• The Future of Private Equity and Venture Capital: The next big waves' impact on illiquid markets and what challenges do LPs/GPs face in sectors like AI & automation, fintech, healthcare, retail, clean energy, property tech, transportation, food tech. How to adapt to these challenges?

• Secular vs Cyclical Trends: Portfolio managers trade off short-term opportunities and risks amidst increasingly large government debt and bond yields, climate change, AI, and strategic decoupling of superpowers.

• Allocators' Perspectives on Alpha Opportunities in 2024: The changing investment landscape and how to implement a mix of traditional & alternative investment classes & strategies into a portfolio.

• Evolution of PE Secondaries - Continuation Vehicles and Increase of Secondary Directs: Secondary investors are getting more attention as the public markets remain challenged as investors reduce risk. Continuation Vehicles / Funds has been the growth segments of PE fund-raising as other market segments struggle. Venture Secondary Directs seem the best way to play VC nowadays.

• The Art & Science of Constructing an Elite Fund of Funds Portfolio: How to identify managers who are capable of making successful investments in all business cycles. Blending quantitative analysis with qualitative assessments.

• What’s next for Emerging Markets Equities? Fundamental vs Quant: EMs have gone from cheap to even cheaper compared to developed markets since 2011. Will this underperformance continue or start reverting to the mean?

• Navigating Potential Stagflation: The impact of global debt bubbles, an inverted yield curve, and the possibility of violent repricing of credit spreads and equities markets. How to prepare for 2024?

• The Tranformation of Fundamental Managers into Quantamental Managers: The critical process of selecting, cleaning and incorporating relevant data into the investment process. Use case studies of qualitative insights & quantitative signals.

• The Convergence of Tech, AI & ML and other Breakthrough Advancements in Healthcare & Life Sciences: The ongoing transformation created exciting opportunities for investors. Explore market trends, investment strategies, regulatory hurdles, and future prospects as we head into 2024.

FINTECH & DATA REVOLUTION - DIGITAL ASSETS, ALTERNATIVE DATA, LARGE LANGUAGE MODELS, MACHINE LEARNING, AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

• Unveiling the Potential of LLM, ML, and AI in Investment Management: The value that advanced analytics bring to asset allocation, encompassing both liquid and illiquid alternatives. What are their capabilities & limitations?

• Evolution of Digital Assets Hedge Fund Investing: How Landscape has transformed and what key changes have occured this year. Discover shifts in strategies, technologies, and market dynamics to be carried in 2024 and beyond.

• Integrating Alternative Data into the Investment Process utilizing ML/AI: Best practices and investment outcomes that benefit from using alternative data. Why alternative data can be challenging to implement for fundamental investors?

• The Importance of a Strong Data Strategy in a World Changed by Blockchain & Digital Assets: Address the disruptive power impacting liquidity, price transparency, cybersecurity. The evolving infrastructure spanning custody, brokerage, exchange services. Must-haves ensuring safety. Updates on the SEC Regulations.

• What are the "New" Alternative Data? Where are the New Sources of Alpha?: Extract a real-time edge and insights on shifts in commodity flows, consumer behavior, supply chain disruptions, and changing market sentiment.

• How the Evolution of AI will play out in Investment Management: Why do signals come and go? Will the alpha all be arbitraged away with AI? Why procuring the right data is an arms race? Is the data market efficient? How about sales alpha?

• Discover the Cutting-Edge Realm of Product Innovation in Asset Management: Harness the power of large language models & machine learning. Balance these technologies with human decisionmaking and strategy development. AI Uses cases. Will quant computing revolutionize asset management?

• Blockchain Networks & Smart Contracts: What is dominating the mind share of different groups (Investors, developers, corporates)? What are the largest innovations happening on chain (i.e. in privacy, scalability, latency) and what chains or networks are they happening on? In what geographies and why?

• Discover the Power of LLM & Generative AI in the Investment Process: How can they be used in quantitative and discretionary investment processes? Will they remain niche or become indispensable? Bridging the hype gap between AI theory and practice.

• Innovation via Front-End Software Development: Getting your Trading Ideas to Market Faster. What tools are available to PMs and Researchers to accelerate innovation and development?