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What's one of the top topics to pop up in conversation between your clients and their friends right now? The future of artificial intelligence (AI). This is a significant market meme—a story people are buzzing about that has significant implications for financial decision making.
When a market meme pops up in conversation between your client and a friend, yet you're not in the room, it creates a referable moment. Identifying and articulating your thesis—a timely, pithy sound bite that connects the dots to the advice you provide—can increase your chances of capturing referable moments.
We turned to Andrew Slimmon, head of Applied Equity Advisors, to provide more insight on his latest thesis: "We may be entering 1997."
"As discussed in the latest Slimmon's TAKE, while the World Wide Web was introduced in 1993 with the release of the Mosaic browser,1 it wasn't until the mid-1990s that the Internet gained widespread popularity.
While the SPX Internet euphoria bubble burst in March of 2000, it was only after the S&P 500® had levitated another +67% after the two good years of 1995 and 1996.2 SPX valuation ultimately peaked at a breathtaking 30.5x forward P/E, far higher than its current 21.9x valuation.3
To be clear, I don't want anyone to assume I am suggesting a +67% return for the S&P 500® over the next three years. Today the market seems obsessed with trying to figure out the winners and losers amongst the technology stocks providing the picks and shovels. While important, it seems to me we're not focused yet on the broader application and implications."
Your clients will be talking about AI in the months ahead. A well-articulated thesis can help turn them into conversations about you when clients repeat it in their conversations.
Bottom Line: Reflect upon the curiosity gap Andrew creates with his thesis and develop your own to increase the probability you will capture these referable moments.
1 Microsoft Copilot.
2 Bloomberg.
3 Microsoft Copilot.
Your clients will be talking about AI in the months ahead. A well-articulated thesis can help turn them into conversations about you when clients repeat it in their conversations.
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Risk considerations: At the Advisor Institute, our goal is not to shape your opinion or provide investment advice, rather to share this viewpoint as an example of what we believe to be a superb display of thesis articulation.
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