Geoff Balzano, chief executive of Morningstar, has opened the seventh Morningstar Investment Conference this morning.
The conference, in association with the Institute of Financial Planning, is being held at the Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel in London on 14-15 May.
Around 400 delegates are expected to attend and Mr Balzano said guests came from countries such as Norway, Switzerland, Poland and China.
The conference will be looking at macro economics as well as other subjects such as platform rebates which will be debated by a panel this afternoon.
Mr Balzano also announced the launch of the Morningstar OBSR Managed Portfolio Service which uses Ibbotson Associates fund selection and OBSR fund manager research. It will be available via the Skandia and FundNetwork platforms and consists of five risk/reward profiles.
Financial Planner will be attending both days of the conference, live tweeting via our feed @FPM_Online using the hashtag #MICUK and writing stories on major speakers.
Speakers at the event today include Greg B Davies from Barclays Wealth, Holly Mackay from The Platforum and Stephen Snowdon from Kames Capital.
Topics include the 'long finance movement', risk aversion, global emerging markets and behavioural finance.
There will be a panel session on platform investment trends with Mark Polson from the Lang Cat, Ian Taylor from Transact, Tom Sheridan from Seven Investment Management and Graham Bentley from gbi2.
There is a dedicated Morningstar Conference mobile/tablet app where delegates can access presentations, videos and speaker profiles.
The event is accredited for 10 hours of CPD each day.