Morningstar’s two-day investment conference opened today at the Plaza Riverbank Hotel in London with more than 400 people expected to attend, a record number. The event is sponsored by leading invetment providers including several IFP sponsors such as iShares, Transact and Pictet. The event is run in association with the Institute of Financial Planning and IFP chief executive Nick Cann was in attendance as the conference go under way.

The event was opened by Geoff Balzano (pictured), chief executive of Morningstar UK, who told the conference of Financial Planners, wealth managers and experts from around the globe that Morningstar has assembled some of the best speakers in the world for the event.

He said in previous years speakers had proved remarkably accurate in their predictions about investment turbulence and the future for equities and other asset classes. Speakers on day one included M&G head of retail fixed interest Jim Leaviss, standing in for M&G’s Graham French who was unavoidably detained overseas, and Crispin Odey on Insynergy.

Mr Leaviss said Western economies would in the near future be focusing more on boosting growth than inflation fears. Mr Odey said Western economies had a lot more to do to become competitive with China and there was further upheaval ahead.

Further details of the conference will appear tomorrow on the website.

Also today, Morningstar has announced a product integration that maps the outcomes of the psychometric risk tolerance tests offered by FinaMetrica, a financial risk profiling provider, to the Morningstar asset allocation guidance models available in Morningstar’s adviser planning tool, Morningstar Adviser Workstation.

The integration enables advisers who are clients of both FinaMetrica and Morningstar Adviser Workstation to move seamlessly from a FinaMetrica risk tolerance questionnaire through to a recommended asset allocation model that draws on the underlying asset allocation methodology from Ibbotson Associates, Morningstar’s registered investment adviser.