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The Club welcomed visiting Rotarian Rick Olson from the Prior Lake Club. Rick discussed the Prior Lake Club sponsoring travel tours and their Lakefront Music Fest that will be held in July. He encouraged fellow Rotarians to consider the tours and attending the Music Festival. Club members were also reminded of the Service to Youth Awards that are scheduled on February 7th.
The guest speaker was Tom Parnell from JP Morgan. Tom presentation focused on the current economy and the condition of the stock market and investments that people have made. He presented graphs that showed the fluctuations in the stock market over the long term since 1900, as well as a graph that showed the fluctuation in the market since 2009. In both cases the trends are that over time, the stock market continues to increase and outperform most other investments. He noted that the sustained increases in the market since 2009 are somewhat unprecedented. JP Morgan believes that the market will continue to increase for another 1-3 years at which time there will be a small recession. They do not expect that the next recession will be as pronounced or as significant as the one that occurred during 2008-2009. The major catalysts that are driving the market now include health care, energy independence of the United States, next generation technology including robotics and artificial intelligence, and continued development of world markets including India.