Colorado State University business students capture first place in Colorado CFA Investment Olympics

Note to Reporters: Photo of Colorado State’s winning Investment Olympics team is available with the news release at www.news.colostate.edu. Please credit CFA Society of Colorado.

A four-student team from the Colorado State University College of Business placed first in the Colorado CFA Society Global Research Challenge – the “Investment Olympics” for university students – and will go on to compete against teams from across the Western Hemisphere in Toronto next month.

Student teams from five Colorado business schools – University of Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver, University of Colorado–Boulder, University of Northern Colorado and CSU – competed in Denver Jan. 23. Their challenge was to provide an investment research recommendation for Ball Corp. that included in-depth business and valuation analysis, report writing, and presentation.

Teams worked directly with the covered company and industry mentors in preparing their analysis of the firm, its competitors, and industry. Students’ final presentations were judged by a high-profile panel of heads of research, portfolio managers, and chief investment officers from top investment firms.

The CSU team consists of seniors Ian Heath and Josh Shaughnessy and master’s Financial Risk Management students Miran Hossain and Hoa Nguyen. They will now represent the Colorado CFA Society in the Americas Regionals in Toronto, March 20-21. Each regional champion then advances to the Global Final, where one winning team is ultimately crowned, on April 12 in London.

“I am extremely proud of our students and their faculty mentor David Mascio for doing such an outstanding job and representing the department,” said Sanjay Ramchander, CFA, chair of the CSU Department of Finance and Real Estate. “I want to thank all our faculty members for providing support and encouragement that made this a true team effort.”

The local CFA Institute Research Challenge is organized by the Advocacy Council of CFA Society Colorado, www.cfasociety.org/colorado/Pages/InvestmentResearchChallenge.aspx

About the Global Research Challenge
The Global Research Challenge was introduced by CFA in 2006 to promote best practices in equity research to business and finance students globally. Student teams are presented with a unique opportunity to create an investment research recommendation for a publicly traded company, learn from leading industry experts through hands-on mentoring, and compete with peers from the world’s top schools. Rigorous testing of students’ analytic, valuation, report writing and presentation skills provides them with an invaluable insight into the financial analyst profession. Additionally, all participants are familiarized with and held to the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct.

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