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Trading Expos
Expo season kicks off
Toni Case - June 10, 2007
They come in search of the formula to successful investing – such as the big stocks to watch in 2007, building a blue-chip share portfolio or understanding the rudiments of Gann theory or Fibonacci. And some are even willing to give up their weekend to do it.
It’s expo season, and this Friday the Trading & Investing Expo kicks off in Melbourne, with an estimated crowd of almost 2000 investors and traders. It takes a year to organise, and plays out in less than a week in total across three cities Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney. Novice and seasoned investors come to meet and greet their favourite authors or investing gurus, try out software and trading platforms, and attend a range of free and fee-based seminars concurrently held across the Exhibition Centre.
Since the Expo started in 2001, exhibition organiser Denise Cooney has seen a change in the makeup of attendees. There are certainly more woman attending today – up from 3% a few years ago to over 15% last year – as well as a slight increase in the number of people in their early twenties. The far majority, however, are males earning more than $50,000, 56% of whom work full-time.
While most of us would struggle to put on an event a tenth of the size, Cooney says that the intense activity leading up to the Expo is just “part and parcel of the business of exhibitions.” Like most exhibition organisers, the staff is lean, which means long hours – particularly leading up to the big day, she says. “This is also the time when you’re finalising all the logistics, staffing, stand construction and operational details so it can certainly be an intense time,” she says.
With so many people and companies involved, much could you wrong for an exhibition organiser, but according to Cooney there’s only one real fear. And that’s a poor showing on the day. “It’s every exhibition organiser’s nightmare. That no-one will turn up,” she says.
But the ingredients are in place for active investor participation this year. Following on from yet another year of double-digit returns on the sharemarket, and a commodities boom to boot, many brokers around the country are boasting record turnover levels. The market is alive and well – almost too well, as the sceptics might say, but certainly well enough for a big year on the expo trail.
Hot seminar topics this year include successful strategies using contracts for difference (CFDs), trading psychology (overcoming mental barriers to successful trading), demystifying technical analysis, candlestick charting, identifying major market reversals and self managed super funds (SMSFs).
Over 40 exhibitors will be together under one roof, including the Australian Tax Office, Australian Technical Analysts Association, publishers John Wiley, most of the leading share trading, CFD and forex brokers, software providers and even more esoteric hobbyist such as The Rare Coin Company.
On Friday when the Exhibition kicks off, Cooney says that any anxiety felt about organising such a grand event actually starts to melt away. “Then it’s just a matter of rolling it out,” she says. “We put the message into the market and spend the marketing budget. We can do no more. We then have to trust that the trading and investing public recognise the opportunity and take advantage of it,” she says.
So early on Friday morning, when professional traders, authors, investing gurus, mums & dads, retirees and the up-and-coming traders of the future begin tumbling through the doors for the 10am start (or 8.30am for seminars), it’s day one for the Trading & Investing Expo team. “At that point, you go with the momentum, trusting you’ve made the right decisions along the way,” says Cooney. “You don’t get a second chance to deliver an exhibition – not until next year.”
The Trading & Investing Expo is held this Friday 15 and Saturday 16 June at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. Brisbane: Friday 27 and Saturday 28 July, Brisbane Convention Centre. Sydney: Friday 26 and Saturday 27 October, Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre. Note: CompareShares is a sponsor of the 2007 Trading & Investing Expo.
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Toni Case is the editor of CompareShares.com.au and is Australia’s first journalist to specialise on Contracts for Difference (CFDs). She was a staff writer for Shares, Personal Investor and Asset Magazines, and today is a regular columnist with the Australian Financial Review. She is a qualified financial adviser, and has an Economics (Honours) degree from Sydney University.
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