Business Students Head to National Stock Research Competition

Students in the College of Business at The University of Findlay competed in the regional Chartered Financial Analyst(CFA) Institute Research Challenge in Cleveland, Ohio, on Feb. 16, and brought home their first victory since UF began competing in 2009. The team will move on to compete in Americas (North and South America) Regional Competition in Toronto, Canada, March 20 – 21.
The CFA Institute Research Challenge is a global tournament for university students to compete in research, report writing and oral presentation of financial analysis for companies. The 2013 competition began in October 2012 with nine universities participating. Each team of three to five students analyzed a company’s financial and economics data exactly like financial analysts to make recommendations on the stocks of companies.
Joonyoung Song, Ph.D., associate professor of finance, recruited students from his classes because the project was closely related to the course lessons. Findlay’s 2013 team included Shishir Kumar Kathurwar, Jose Montilva Zambrano, Garrett Busch and Trelyn Gerlinger.
“Our team consists of students who have diverse backgrounds,” said Song. “Every team member has his or her own unique analytical potential, which in turn enables each member to make significant contributions to the research competition.”
The CFA society of Cleveland chose a local company for each team to analyze. With three MBA students and one undergraduate student, The University of Findlay worked on the financial analysis project of Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc.
To compete, the students met twice a week for the research project, submitted a research paper and gave an oral presentation, which was graded by a panel of professional financial analysts.
Nine universities began the competition and only four completed the entire project including The University of Findlay, Walsh University, John Carroll University and Hiram University. With a mere one-point score difference, The University of Findlay took first place as John Carroll University placed second.
UF’s team will modify and update the research presentation materials to win the Americas Regional Competition next month.