Retirement Income Journal
The information forum of the decumulation industry.

The scene of the Occupy Wall Street demonstration at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan on October 10 was a flash from the past to anybody who participated in similar events during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The denim-wearing crowd, the scent of incense, the hand-lettered signs, the anomaly of bare breasts in broad daylight and the incredible lightness of civil disobedience—all recalled the rock concerts, sit-ins and nude beaches of 40 years ago.

But, if they really wanted to up-the-establishment, these avatars of protests-past might have picked a different place to camp out. As I learned the following day at The Big Picture Conference in midtown Manhattan, most of the trading that once occurred at the Stock Exchange now happens on high-speed servers in Mahwah, NJ, 35 miles north of Wall St.

The Big Picture Conference was more sobering than an AA meeting. Sponsored by Barry Ritholz, a money manager who publishes The Big Picture financial website, the conference showcased the a series of speakers—a gold bug, a technical analyst, consultants to institutional traders—who led the audience of 300 or so through a litany of numbing factoids and predictions.