Students get invested in Bryant program

WELl STOCKED: Asli Ascioglu, left, professor of finance at Bryant University, instructs student Jack Grant, a senior from Rocky Hill, Conn., during a portfolio management class in the Archway Investment Fund program. / PBN PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO
WELl STOCKED: Asli Ascioglu, left, professor of finance at Bryant University, instructs student Jack Grant, a senior from Rocky Hill, Conn., during a portfolio management class in the Archway Investment Fund program. / PBN PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO

Jack Grant, a Bryant University senior, recently researched whether or not to invest in Microsoft for the university’s Archway Investment Fund. He found the tech giant wanting.

Grant, 21, of Rocky Hill, Conn., an accounting major, has already been offered a job at a Boston investment company when he graduates. He and some of his classmates are responsible for studying technology stocks in the Archway class.

This semester, 21 students who have completed the securities-analysis portion of the class and attended lectures on investment are now managing a university portfolio valued in mid-September at just over $1 million.

“I’ve come to realize there’s quite a bit of risk [in tech stocks], because they’re so volatile,” Grant said. “[With] Microsoft, we found there was some upside, but there’s too much risk, because there’s a lot of competition from other areas. They didn’t have enough demand.”

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Entirely student managed, the fund was created over a decade ago with a $200,000 investment from the university. Instructors teach students how to be financial managers using real money and real investments. As of Sept. 11, 2015, the portfolio had slipped from about $1 million to $998,000 due mostly to global market upheaval in late August.

“Bryant could give the fund to Fidelity and ask them to manage it,” noted Asli Ascioglu, professor of finance for the portfolio-management section of the course, “but our main goal here is learning. It’s a tool.”

The fund, benchmarked to the S&P 500 Index, and the classwork associated with it were launched in fall 2005, said Ascioglu and Peter J. Nigro, the finance department chairman and one of the fund’s founding faculty members.

“Their decisions have real consequences,” Nigro said. “Just that alone makes the students take it more seriously.”

In addition to earnings generated from student management from semester to semester, the university added $150,000 in October 2006 and again in September 2007, and another $100,000 in April 2010, Ascioglu said.

The fund’s strategy typically has a long-term horizon, she added. Students follow investment fundamentals, and to manage the fund over the summer, set stop-loss orders in advance so funds can be sold if significant losses kick in.

The fund took major hits in 2008 and 2011, dropping in value by 10 percent at those points, but even then closely paralleled the S&P, according to a 2015 report. Most recently, the fund grew by 8 percent and has exceeded its benchmark since fall 2013, Ascioglu said.

“This semester, I see high market volatility and that the interest rates are going to increase, so things are going to be different than last semester,” Ascioglu said. “The first thing we’ll do is talk about risk management. It’s great they were able to beat the market by 8 percent year to date, but we have to now try to protect that gain.”

More than 400 students have successfully completed the Archway Investment Fund program to date, first interviewing for the role of securities analyst, researching and recommending stocks. If they are successful, they are promoted to portfolio manager for the next semester and focus on choosing and executing investment strategies.

Some alumni have worked at such firms as the Oppenheimer Fund, John Hancock Financial Services and Hartford Investment Management, faculty said.

The C.V. Starr Financial Markets Center provides real-time news and data transferred by live feeds through Reuters 3000, a financial trading system used by some of the largest financial organizations in the world.

The class has influenced Guillaume Sabourin’s leanings as risk averse, the 21-year-old senior from Montreal said.

“One of the main things they teach right in the beginning is we’re a long-term value fund,” he explained.

One alumna who learned what she did and didn’t like in finance as a result of taking the classes is Jennifer Schwall, 26, of Rehoboth. Schwall graduated with a degree in finance in spring 2011. In March 2014, she became executive director of the Providence-based Cherrystone Angel Group, having interned and also worked there, she said.

When given the choice between public markets and becoming a trader or analyst, or going into the venture-capital and private-equity industry, Schwall learned that she preferred the latter, because she likes working closely with the CEOs of startups the way she has at Cherrystone.

Nonetheless, the classes “gave me a foundation to evaluate companies and the companies’ ability to increase their value over a finite time period,” she said.

Senior Chris Anzivino, 21, of Sutton, Mass., likes being involved in hands-on classes and pitching insights about investments and strategies.

“It’s really been a great experience for me,” said Anzivino. “It’s changed my way of thinking. It’s made me a lot more skeptical. You always want to do some digging and investigating rather than trust the headline on CNBC.” •

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