Student Managed Investment Fund (SMIF)

After interviews, up to 20 students are manually enrolled in SMIF. They can be either undergraduate or graduate students in any business major. This opportunity best fits students who would like to pursue a career in asset/wealth management or investment banking, but it offers experiential and exciting learning to everyone. SMIF students manage a portfolio of real money that was started with $50,000 donated by Mr. Sam Mahrouq in May 2020 and has grown significantly over time. Click here for the live updates of SMIF portfolio, possibly lagging by 15 minutes or so.

Students receive three hours credit and can repeat the course once for another three hours credit. Titled "security analysts", they are paired up to cover one of the major sectors in the economy and grouped up to make professional recommendations on portfolio rebalancing, as well as stock purchases or sales. The "seasoned" ones, or returning students for the second time, are called "senior analysts" and could act as team leads. They could also volunteer to be on the "fund/portfolio manager" team to work with the "chief advisor" on semester-end reports.

Over three months, the analysts acquire the technicality behind the top-down/bottom-up approaches of portfolio management and the valuation models in security analysis. To name a few, they use discounted cash flow models, relative valuation models, and technical analysis. Collectively, analysts will vote to make additions, liquidations, rebalancing, or rotations to SMIF fund, which will then be executed by the chief advisor (the professor). They also discuss entry points and exit strategies with the ultimate goal of outperforming S&P 500 index with controlled risk.

The Sam Mahrouq Financial Markets Lab and its 10 state-of-the-art Bloomberg Data Terminals are available for students in SMIF and other relevant classes. There is also one Bloomberg terminal in the Main Library for more flexible access hours. Students in SMIF and some other finance courses are required to take some Bloomberg certification courses such as Bloomberg Market Concepts and ESG. The CFA Institute also sponsors the students for a certificate in CFA Ethics. These micro certificates help finance students understand the applications of finance concepts in the real world.

For more information, please visit SMIF short page or contact Dr. Trang Thai at [email protected].