the two major universities in my state began investing in an energy hedge fund. The fund manager is praised as a super genius hero in the news. hah\ we have a business student investment fund. Started with 100k in 1996 and now its valued at 360k.
I'm actually from psu and my ex's friend was part of that. From what I understand, the students were assigned different sectors and their job was to pick three or so stocks in their sector. The girl (my ex's friend) that I talked to chose abercrombie, panera, maybe nike. Basically, just words that sounded familiar to her. I asked her if her sector was service (panera) or retail or what and she didn't really seem to know what I was talking about, or didn't remember. She's getting an internship this summer at Merril, something to do w/ trading and insurance, I believe. She said she wants to trade 'fixed income derivatives'. "like the 10 year?" I asked. Her response wasn't very clear there, either.
I didn't mean to knock the kids w/ my post above, just sharing a very brief convo w/ one of them. Curious, though, if you are picking S&P stocks and use intelligent money management, wouldn't that make beating the index alot easier regardless of the picks (survivorship bias, or something).
Haven't read all of the posts in the thread, and perhaps someone has already mentioned this: "SO WHAT????" The odds are that some student-managed fund out there will outperform the average, just a matter of probabilities. Just as there are hedge funds out there which are kicking ass. More interesting is the actuall percentage of those who are succesful out of most of these socalled student-managed funds and also the magnitude of their success... Compare that to the real-world industry numbers...
Every university and college (as well as nyumerous high schools) have these investemnt funds blah blah blah. Trading your own money and trading SIZE is not the same as a B.S $500k phantom account. Try making 18% when you have a $1B+ under mgmnt and then you can consider yourself a star.
Fair enough, though the fund that I was referring to is real money, approximately $800K. Unfortunately my work schedule didn't make it practical for me to get involved with the fund, but their portfolio selections are interesting. Of course, if you have been investing in Canadian income trusts and equities for the past couple of years, you most likely look like a rock star, assuming that you had exposure to commodities...
You're way off base, plenty of university's have students managing real money. AT the University of Dayton they have $5 million, or more, under management. They started with $1 million in 1999. The text below was from end of 2002, after the crash in 2000 and subsequent 2 years. They outperformed by a considerable percent over the time period. Dayton's program began in 1999, and the trustees plan by the end of the year to increase the amount students can invest to $3 million. If the fund continues to perform well after that, the trustees plan to increase the amount to $5 million. Profits go into the university. The Dayton students have outperformed the Standard & Poor's 500 Index by 5.5 percent in each of the past three years, a period marked by sharply falling stock prices. While the S&P 500 declined 7 percent over the period, the value of the students' portfolio decreased only 1.6 percent. âIt's no longer a theoretical student exercise,â said student adviser Robert Froehlich, a financial analyst for Scudder Investments in Chicago. âThis isn't about getting a grade in class anymore. They now have this added fiduciary responsibility.â The students manage the funds from a lab that simulates Wall Street. They use the same computer software and subscription services used by major financial institutions. Televisions are tuned to CNN and CNBC, and two Bloomberg terminals provide news and securities information. Microphones embedded in the ceiling enable students to hold teleconferences with analysts. A ticker-board displays real-time information on stock trades, and a bank of clocks reflect the time in each of the major trading markets - London, New York, Chicago, Tokyo and Singapore.