If you weren’t able to make our Switzer Investment Strategy Day entitled How to Make Money in a Mature Bull Market in Sydney last Thursday, let me give you a summary of some of the main points that could impact the way you invest for the year or so ahead.

I kicked off the show with my main reasons for believing we can stay long stocks. I made mention that while The Economist’s Intelligence Unit thinks 2020 will be the year the USA could cop a recession, Westpac’s chief economist, Bill Evans told me on my Money Talks program on the Sky Business Channel that he thinks the Yanks have more time up their sleeve.

If The Economist team is right, you’d expect stocks to start losing friends some time late in 2019 but the timing of the next recession in the States will depend on interest rate rises this year and next. The current betting is three rises this year and they’ve already had one. If the economy gets too hot, we could see some volatile days for stocks across 2019, as we’ve seen this year.

I reiterated two of my most persuasive arguments for remaining calm about this bull market, which many say has gone on a long time, but that’s only based on averages.

Check out these bull market facts:

• Current bull market: 9 years & up 300+%.
• Average bull markets: 9 years & up 480%.
• 1980s bull market: 12.8 years & up 845%.
• 1990s bull market: 12.9 years & up 816%.
• The longest: 15.1 years & up 935% (1950s).

What the above shows is that a few recent bull markets have gone on for nearly 13 years and have gone up over 800%, which puts the current US market of only being up a tad over 300% less worrying.

I also like Citi’s research that shows only 3.5 out of 18 key indicators say “sell” stocks right now.

Our own Charlie Aitken stuck to his guns reiterating that Australia is still the place to invest for income and overseas, especially Asia, is the place to be for growth.

Mary Manning, portfolio manager from Ellerston Capital, reinforced Charlie’s pro-Asian stance and is especially smitten with the opportunities in India. Over the past year, I have featured a couple of Indian investment managers with funds, concentrating on India’s better companies, and they have performed well.

Mary pointed out that over the past year the MSCI ex Japan Index was up 27.4%, while our market was up 4.4%. And over three years we were down 0.7%, while the Asian markets were up 29.2%!

She argues that according to the ATO, the typical SMSF trustee has, on average, only 1.25% allocated to foreign assets and 0.02% to Asia.

This is crazy, she says, with Asia being the home of big global tech companies and where structural growth is the greatest. Most developed countries rely on cyclical growth, which goes up and down and is often driven by fiscal and monetary policies. Structural growth comes from things like a rising middle class, as in the case of China, and it becomes more sustaining than cyclical growth.

Both Mary and Charlie have funds that have big exposures to some of the fastest growing companies in the world in Asia. The argument for having more exposure to overseas businesses remains a valid one, especially for Aussie investors who are excessively exposed to local stocks.

After the Brisbane and Melbourne strategy days this week, next Monday I’ll share with you the stocks that were given honourable mentions from the likes of John Murray from Perennial Value and others. But one worth giving to you now is Event Hospitality. This has been a long-held stock in John’s fund and he still believes it represents a good value stock with a pretty good dividend.

Nathan Bell of Peters MacGregor, who often has foreign companies in his fund, pointed out that ARB — sometimes called the “bloke’s company” is an example of great, local growth company. He insists that we should be more interested in growth companies and we shouldn’t be scared to go overseas to find them.

And as a response to Bill Shorten’s crusade against retirees pocketing tax refunds off their dividend-paying stocks, Daniel Pennell of Plato Investment Management revealed how there are good dividend-payers outside Australia, which look good even without the benefits of franking credits.

Plato’s Global Shares Income Fund – A Class, harvests those overseas companies and Daniel certainly made many of us think about our bias towards local dividend-payers. Effectively he made us think a little more outside of the local stock market box.

If Bill gets his way, there will be a much stronger reason for investors like us to start looking at foreign companies as alternatives to local companies, which could see some real price deflation, if Labor takes power in 2019!

One intriguing presentation came from James Lydotes of BNY Mellon. James’ focus was on infrastructure investment, which is something many of us should not ignore with the age of big project spending happening not just in Australia but worldwide.

Interestingly, James pointed to an interesting development that will come with the 5G network. He showed a photograph of a Telstra Telephone box or kiosk and asked the audience who had used one of these over the past three months. No one put their hand up, which was not surprising and he explained they remain because of Telstra’s service obligation enforced by Canberra.

However, these virtual emergency telephones, which I guess get used by tourists and local luddites, who hate mobile phones and kids whose parents won’t play a modern game, could become pivotal to Telstra getting the most out of the 5G network of the future.

I instantly thought “that could be good news for Telstra’s share price” and when I resumed my MC role, after James’ speech, I asked if anyone else had the same thought? Given there were a lot of SMSF retirees and investors in the room, programmed to love dividends and companies like Telstra, when their share price is not sinking terribly, there was a jocular response indicating they were all thinking like yours truly!

That’s something I’ll pursue in coming weeks with techno-Telstra experts.

Of course, there were hundreds of great revelations over the course of the day but the stand out take out for me was that listening to professionals, who think about investments nearly 24/7, opens up your eyes to a world of other possibilities that should be considered when building your wealth. It makes you ask the questions: “Should I be more diversified and do I need to get exposure to thoughts and trading positions of professionals?”

Shawn Burns, senior portfolio manager at the Contango Income Generator, which looks for stocks outside the top 30 to invest in for income, explained how he picks his stocks.

He argued that a blend of top 30 and the best income-paying stocks outside of the top 30 gives you a more efficient allocation.

Shawn finished his presentation with his top three picks outside of the top 30 stocks, which he gave away at his stand. As a result, the attendees flocked to see him and get his tips.

I can’t tell you them this week as the Brisbane day on Tuesday and the Melbourne one on Wednesday are still ahead. Of course, I will tell you next week but if you think you’d like to attend, last minute, click here to see if you can get a ticket to what I think is the best investment show in town!

Important: This content has been prepared without taking account of the objectives, financial situation or needs of any particular individual. It does not constitute formal advice. Consider the appropriateness of the information in regard to your circumstances.