Students from Queen Mary’s School of Economics and Finance have won a research challenge from the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute (CFA).
The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition that provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis and professional ethics. The competition was the culmination of months of research, presentations and interviews.
The winning team from the School of Economics and Finance are also members of Queen Mary’s MSc Investment Fund (QUMMIF) and the Finance Trading Programme (FTP).
The QUMMIF gives students a taste of managing a real investment portfolio. Members of the team were: Daniel Abolins, James Medlycott, Sara Sugi, Amid Ridha Dhia Zaini and Zack Hachem. They were mentored by Paul Bisping from the CFA.
Each competing university sent a group of three to five students to participate in the UK final. Queen Mary’s team will now travel to Zurich, Switzerland for the next round where they will test their analytical skills and presentation abilities against competitors from other universities across the region. The global final will take place in April in New York.
Dr Alfonsina Iona, Senior Lecturer in Economics and Finance at Queen Mary said: “The investment case presented by the team was outstanding. We are proud that QUMMIF keeps providing students with robust technical and practical skills which will make them successful in evaluating real assets in the future.”
Sara Sugi, one of the members of Queen Mary’s winning team said: “We put in a lot of hard work and dedication to reach this point. It was an honour to work with such amazing teammates who made it an enjoyable and educational experience, and we're honoured to represent the University.
“We were able to gain real-world experience by assuming the role of a team of research analysts. The first part of the Challenge was to write a report outlining our investment recommendation on the company of our choice.
“We were one of the four teams selected out of 18 submissions in the UK to present our recommendation, something that could not have been accomplished without the support of our industry mentor, Paul Bisping; our faculty mentor, Dr. Gonçalo Faria; and the faculty from QUMMIF. We look forward to competing in the EMEA Finals in Zurich, Switzerland.”
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