Oil prices are likely to remain stubbornly high, but even here Ricchiuti saw a silver lining.  "At $100 a barrel, it's a Goldilocks scenario," he observed. "Companies will drill and the search for alternatives" becomes economically feasible.

A student of the stock market, Ricchiuti indulged in some financial myth busting, including the idea that high unemployment is bad for stock prices. Since 1948, equities have performed twice as well when U.S. unemployment is over 6.6%.

Many different real estate sectors are selling below their replacement cost, but that doesn't mean they won't remain bargains. Speaking on a panel examining this subject during the conference's second day, Commonwealth's McMillan identified problems and opportunities in various sectors.

For example, office buildings have recovered to 2007 levels and employment is recovering while construction remains low, constricting supply.  But in many markets, office rents reflect the sector's relative strength, McMillan explained. That's a sharp contrast compared to retail properties, where the business remains "at nowhere near 2007 levels." However, the weak state of retail real estate may be creating opportunities for financial appreciation.

Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine, began the luncheon keynote talk the second day with the sobering subject of Iran's development of a nuclear weapon. Financial advisors should avoid panicking in the likely event that Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facilities, Forbes told attendees. Forbes made it clear he thinks an Israeli strike will come sooner rather than later.

Israel may not have reached a final decision but they "know the window is closing," Forbes said, adding that it is a matter "of months, not years."  He also predicted the Israeli government wouldn't trust its security to the United States, remarking that when Israel commenced the Six-Day War in 1967, it notified President Lyndon Johnson's administration after its planes were already in the air.

"This could get ugly very quickly," Forbes told advisors. Even if the U.S. doesn't want to get involved, it will have little choice when the Iranians start trying to shut down the Strait of Hormuz.

Turning to the U.S. economy, Forbes said we should experience a respectable, if still subpar, year in 2012. But after the depth of the downturn in 2008 and 2009, 3% GDP growth is nothing to get excited about.

Indeed, Forbes maintained the economy should be expanding at a high-single-digit rate now. He blamed the Obama administration's policies for the weak recovery and said that the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, coupled with the tax increases embedded in Obama­Care, would slow the recovery late in the year. If Obama is re-elected, the U.S. economy will look like "Europe on a good day, like a baseball team batting .240," good enough to win a few games and start vacation in October.

However frustrated Republicans may be with their presidential candidates, Forbes predicted they will regain the White House and control both houses of Congress. "Americans don't want another four years [of this]," he said.

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