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Peter Schiff, Farouki Majeed and Dick Charlton to Headline the 2012 Pension Bridge Annual Speaker Faculty

Boca Raton, FL (PRWEB) February 24, 2012

This year’s Keynote Speakers have quickly gained attention in the pension fund community. Among the keynote topics covered will be the macroeconomic view of the economy, how to approach investing in the post financial crisis environment and Risk Parity as an asset allocation model.

The Pension Bridge Annual Conference will be an educational gathering of the most highly regarded leaders from the Institutional Investment Community. The conference will be held at The Four Seasons Hotel, San Francisco on April 10th and 11th, 2012.

Peter Schiff, President and Chief Global Strategist of Euro Pacific Capital, will be discussing the current and future economic conditions which can play a role in helping pension plans decide on strategic asset allocation. His outlook on the stock market and economy will be closely followed due to his accuracy. Schiff correctly called the bear market before it began and positioned his clients accordingly. His precise and timely forecasts have included the collapse of the housing market, the mortgage meltdown, the credit crunch and the increasing price of gold relative to the U.S. Dollar. Schiff is often quoted in the print media including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, L.A. Times, Barron’s, BusinessWeek, Time and Fortune. He has regular guest appearances on CNBC, Fox Business, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel.

Farouki Majeed, Senior Investment Officer of Asset Allocation and Risk Management at CalPERS will discuss the challenges and opportunities of investing in this post financial crisis landscape, while taking risk factors into consideration. California Public Employees’ Retirement System, (CalPERS), the nation’s largest public pension fund, now has $ 235.5 Billion in assets, (as of February 17th, 2012). In his role there since 2007, Majeed led two asset allocation reviews resulting in Board adoption of new strategic asset allocation targets as well as the establishment of a new inflation-linked assets program. Additionally, he has led efforts to enhance the risk measurement and reporting process. Mr. Majeed came to CalPERS from the Abu Dhabi Retirement Pensions and Benefits Fund of the United Arab Emirates, where he served as the inaugural Chief Investment Officer. Previously, he was Deputy Director of Investments for the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, Chief Investment Officer for the Orange County Employees Retirement System and Investment Officer for the Minneapolis Employees Retirement Fund.

Dick Charlton, Chairman and CEO of NEPC, will be participating as the Keynote Speaker on the second day of conference sessions. He will be discussing Risk Parity as an asset allocation model and how it fits into the big picture in regards to the markets. NEPC currently services 300 retainer client relationships with assets in excess of $ 655 billion. NEPC has earned industry wide acclaim for its superior client ratings in national independent surveys. The firm’s collective client base has outperformed national averages in 22 of the last 25 years. Prior to forming the firm in 1986, Charlton initiated Michigan Bell’s Pension Oversight District, as well as time spent with AT&T and Merrill Lynch.

The Pension Bridge has continued to attract attention with its highly esteemed Keynote Speakers and overall impressive speaker line-up for its educational conferences. By limiting the investment manager firms and marketers, The Pension Bridge has successfully become an industry leader for influential decision makers of pension assets.

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©Copyright 1997-

, Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.
Vocus, PRWeb, and Publicity Wire are trademarks or registered trademarks of Vocus, Inc. or Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.

Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital – Trading the Gold-Silver Ratio and Review of Weststar Resources

New York, NY (PRWEB) May 26, 2011

Economist Peter Schiff, President and Chief Global Strategist of Euro Pacific Capital Inc, made mid-March 2011 his opinion on precious metals with silver continuing to outperform gold due to the fact silver has a historical ratio of 16:1 and was historically pegged in the Coinage Act of 1776 at 20:1, plus silver is favored for possessing the properties of both a precious metal and an industrial metal.

Peter Schiff has made a number of accurate economic prediction over the last half decade from the real estate crash in December 2006 to the bullish rise of precious metals. With spot gold now at ~US$ 1,525/oz and Silver at ~US$ 37.67/oz the Gold-Silver ratio now sits at ~40:1 again. Schiff aptly pointed out that when the dollar was established in the Coinage Act of 1776 the Act essentially pegged the gold-silver relationship at 20:1 because the dollar was defined as ’1/20th an ounce of gold or 1 ounce of silver.” With the ratio up high like it is now Schiff believes it makes sense to favour silver. Schiff did however state (in mid-March 2011) “If it got to 25:1 or 30:1 then I would think you could certainly back-off” – which is exactly what occurred in the markets over the last 45 days, demonstrating how astute precious metal investors can make money simultaneously exposing themselves to silver and gold and trade the weighting of the ratios.

Since Schiff’s mid-March 2011 comments on the gold-silver ratio it has become clearer that the global fiscal landscape is now in the process of finding out a new way of exchanging goods around the world; it can no longer be the US dollar because of the fiscal mess of the USA, Japan and Europe. We are witnessing currency reevaluation as a result of unsustainable and overwhelming levels of government debt — currently for every dollar the US spends they are borrowing 40% and cutbacks being talked about represent miniscule amounts in relation to the size of the expenditures. Silver and gold are the only two currencies that can’t be devalued (you can’t just print with a printing press) and that’s why they are seeing strength.

Peter Schiff offered insight into how he views ownership of physical precious metal versus ownership via equities (in related mining stocks) – Schiff believes people should own both and stated he is weighted towards equities; “I have more of my money in investments in gold mining companies than I do bullion.” Schiff sees the physical metal as representing stored value (money), whereas mining companies are ‘investments’; a precious metal mining company takes on risks in exchange for the reward that comes with discovery and value creation from when it takes gold and/or silver that is buried in the ground and brings it out of the ground where it has practical value. Schiff views his mining stocks as a shareholder in these companies saying “I own the ounces they have in their reserve in the ground, part of which you own”.

Schiff did not offer specific investment vehicles to capitalize on however Market Equities Research Group offers below some possible ways for exposure to precious metals including a review of Weststar Resources Corp. a unique Canadian-based mineral exploration mining company focused on high-grade gold-silver production potential in Mexico. Weststar intends to re-develop and build ounces at La Paloma. The project is host to several silver and gold occurrences and a high-grade past producing gold and silver mine with a historic mine plan that sets up a near term cash flow scenario for WER.V shareholders.

A full review of Weststar is available at http://www.miningmarketwatch.net/wer.htm online.

Simple ways to gain exposure to precious metals are to buy a senior producer focused ETF such as Market Vectors-Gold Miners (GDX), Global X Silver Miners ETF (SIL), or a junior focused ETF such as Market Vectors Junior Gold (&Silver) Miners ETF (GDXJ). However the problem with these ETFs is that they funnel attention to a select few companies whereas there is a large universe of fast growing gold and silver stocks that offer exceptional risk-reward scenarios. One such company that appears poised for upside share price appreciation in 2011 is Weststar Resources Corp., its La Paloma Silver and Gold Project in Mexico hosts a high-grade past producing gold and silver mine. The mine was closed in 1927 just as miners were preparing to conduct the first mining below surface. Using exploration shafts the miners had blocked off large zones of high-grade material; an initial 44,300 tonnes were to have been excavated at an assayed average grade of 6.64 g/t Au and 500 g/t Ag, however a miners strike shut the mine down and the operation was put in abeyance for over half a century — part of the plan for WER.V is to go into the mine and start removing the material. La Paloma currently supports small scale mining operation on site and Weststar will look to increase the scale of operations. The historic mine is only a small portion of the potential as it only produced from ~200m of the ~1600m total strike length of the main epithermal vein structure. The Veta Ancha workings (which literally mean “wide vein” in Spanish) alone hosts a government reported historic (non NI 43-101 compliant) ‘resource potential’ of 750,000 tonnes grading 4.19 g/t Gold and 123 g/t Silver — that is on just one section of one tunnel and does not include the aforementioned blocked off sections of the 1927 mine plan. A back-of-the-envelope calculation looking at only a 200m x 200m block of the historically known mineralized area using the average grade found in historical documentation of 4 g/t Gold and 400 g/t Silver, there appears there is potential for over a billion dollars of in-situ value of precious metals (ignoring recovery costs & metallurgy) and that is just going down to 200m. WER.V will drill to open-pit potential of 300 ft. The 160-hectare project hosts several silver-gold occurrences with immense latent potential which have not had the benefit of modern exploration. Weststar has 80% Ownership via interest to earn (currently under LOI), 2% NSR.

Investors in WER.V have an opportunity to gain exposure to a growing precious metals exploration/mining company in the process of exposing serious potential value at the La Paloma silver-gold project. With only ~13M shares outstanding (~19M fully diluted) and trading under CDN$ 1.00 WER.V is poised for significant upside revaluation to better reflect the inherent precious metals value.

A full review of Weststar is available at http://www.miningmarketwatch.net/wer.htm online.

This release may contain forward-looking statements regarding future events that involve risk and uncertainties. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual events or results. Articles, excerpts, commentary and reviews herein are for information purposes and are not solicitations to buy or sell any of the securities mentioned. Readers are referred to the terms of use, disclaimer and disclosure located at the above referenced URLs.

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©Copyright 1997-

, Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.
Vocus, PRWeb, and Publicity Wire are trademarks or registered trademarks of Vocus, Inc. or Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.

This article aims to discuss briefly the advantages of utilising HR software in a business environment; we will look at the main benefits to the user and explore how they can increase productivity within the organisation’s HR department..

Regardless of the size of the company the HR department has an extremely important role to play in managing the welfare of employees, ensuring that their needs are met, their hours are logged accurately and their pay is organised and delivered promptly. Keeping the organisation’s employees happy is key to their performance and productivity in the work place.

The larger the workforce the greater the need for an accurate recording system to assist the HR department keep fully up to date records for each of their employees. Investing in a HR software package is the ideal solution.

There is a wealth of information that the HR department will need to have access to for each employee, this can be anything from basic personal details, to training records, disciplinary records and holiday requests. By using HR software all of this important information can be stored centrally ready for quick retrieval.

A good HR software package should be user friendly, versatile and flexible, it should offer the user a comprehensive range of options allowing them to cover all aspects of HR management in just a few clicks of a mouse, Any software should also be affordable therefore encouraging the organisation to invest in its implementation.

Furthermore human resources software needs to be flexible and designed to help HR management cut down the administrative side of HR and focus more on increasing communication between HR and the employees, HR policy and legislation, etc.

As well as covering off the day to HR administrative tasks the HR software should offer the user the option assistance in tackling the more challenging tasks of recruitment, training and employee performance reviews. Internal communications between departments and management hierarchies should also be offered, allowing all levels of management access to HR information that can improve performance.

The software package should also be user-customisable, therefore depending on the nature of the business, the number of employees and the role of the HR department, the software should be able to meet all of their needs, allowing them to add or take away essential screens as the need arises. Inherent flexibility is essential if the system is to adapt as the organisation grows and needs change.

In summary, you will soon see the benefits when you selecting a suitable piece of HR software for your organisation. Not only will your administrative workload be cut, but the flexibility the software will allow you to spend more time working closely with your employees, helping them to understand the way in which HR works and how it works for them. This close level of communication is very difficult to achieve if you are struggling against a tide of administration. The introduction of a good HR software package can alleviate this pressure and help to improve the success of your department.