Our team
Michael Binger, CFA
President
Michael Binger, CFA, serves as the President of Gradient Investments, LLC. Binger brings over 31 years of investment management experience to Gradient Investments and its affiliated advisors and clients. He has extensive experience working directly with financial advisors designing and actively managing portfolios. Binger has successfully invested in numerous market and economic cycles giving him a level and depth of experience that is rare in this industry.
Binger started his investment career in Minneapolis, Minnesota with Lutheran Brotherhood in 1987 and gained experience managing assets in a variety of asset classes including convertible bonds, small cap equities, and large cap equities. When Lutheran Brotherhood and Aid Association for Lutherans merged in 2001 to become Thrivent Financial, Binger was selected to work as one of the senior portfolio managers on the Large Cap Growth team and Large Cap Alpha Team managing over $3 billion in assets. As a senior portfolio manager, he developed and oversaw the tactical investment strategies utilized within mutual funds, variable annuities, pension funds and insurance company products. These investment processes included proprietary portfolio construction strategies, security selection metrics and volatility control parameters.
Binger graduated from the University of Minnesota earning a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration-Finance. He graduated with honors and was the University of Minnesota's “Wall Street Journal Award Winner”. Binger is a CFA and a member of The Chartered Financial Analyst Institute and the Twin Cities Society of Security Analysts.
Binger's media highlights include numerous appearances, providing market insight on CNBC, Bloomberg TV and Fox Business. He has also been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Smart Money, Reuters, Business Week and numerous other local, national, and global investment publications.