6:30 pm – Registration
7:00 pm – Keynote Speaker – Axel Mark
7:45 pm - Q & A Time

What is happening with the U.S. dollar, the Euro, Yen and gold and why does it matter to investors? When traditional asset classes, like equities and fixed income, move in tandem, how do you protect against the downside? Where do you find uncorrelated returns, low volatility and profit opportunities regardless of the market direction? Axel Merk, the Authority on Currencies™, will discuss the current macroeconomic forces driving global currencies and how the currency asset class may help provide diversification.

Axel Merk is the President and CIO of Merk Investments, manager of the Merk Funds. An authority on currencies, he is a pioneer in the use of strategic currency investing to seek diversification. Axel Merk is a sought after speaker and author on topics ranging from the economy, gold and currencies to sustainable wealth and personal finance, as well as a regular guest and contributor to the business media around the world. 

Mr. Merk manages the Merk Hard and Asian Currency Funds and co-manages the Merk Absolute Return Currency Fund. He holds a B.A. in Economics (magna cum laude) and a M.Sc. in Computer Science from Brown University.

While best known for his macroeconomic insights, Merk has an extensive quantitative background. While attending Brown, Merk adapted his research in applied mathematics and machine learning to the financial markets. A paper based on Merk's Master of Science Thesis was published by Elsevier Science Publishers in 1992. After completing his masters, Merk conducted post graduate research in finance at Imperial College in London. During the course of his academic work, Merk consistently disagreed with academic research in finance that ignored boundary conditions. Merk, a computer scientist at heart, argued that it was the boundary conditions, the bugs, that crash programs.

Axel Merk founded Merk Investments in Switzerland in 1994 by pooling the investments he had been managing for his friends starting in college. In 2001 he relocated the business to California, and Merk Investments became a SEC registered investment advisory firm. In 2005 Merk Investments launched its first mutual fund, the Merk Hard Currency Fund.

Having extensively studied quantitative modeling early in his career, and realizing the pitfalls of over analyzing - historic - quantitative data, Merk became an expert on qualitative research and macroeconomic trends. Merk's investment philosophy can be best described as an integration of quantitative and qualitative analysis based on the knowledge and experience gained from decades of primary research and direct investment experience

He is married to Hanna Tikkanen-Merk and they live in the San Francisco Bay Area with their four children.  He is a marathon runner and a private pilot.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

$10 in advance (register on this site using Paypal (plus a $0.60 convenience fee) or via check payable to "AAII" sent to the address below) or $15 at-the-door. YOU MUST RSVP AND SUBMIT PAYMENT to qualify for the advanced rate of $10 (RSVP alone does not qualify for the $10 advanced rate).

Send advanced registration checks ($10 per attendee, payable to "AAII") to:

AAII Atlanta Chapter
C/O Tara Rice, LMG Corp
2941 Piedmont Road, Suite C
Atlanta GA, 30305