Dayton Business Journal: Wright State finance students develop real-life investment skills with new funding

Excerpt

Finance students in the Real Money Investing course usually meet in the Soin Trading Center in Rike Hall.

Wright State’s Raider Asset Management Fund has received $2.5 million in additional funding for students to invest, more than doubling the portfolio’s assets to $4.9 million.

Finance students in the Raj Soin College of Business manage the portfolio of university funds in a course titled Real Money Investing. The students who take the course make all the investment decisions for the portfolio, within the fund’s policy guidelines.

A record of success

The investment portfolio was established in 1996 with $60,000 from the Wright State University Foundation and was infused with an additional $500,000 in 2006 from the Wright State Board of Trustees.

Since 2016, the portfolio’s value has grown 11.9 percent per year, growing to $2.4 million in April 2022.

“Raider Asset Management has done an excellent job and has earned the trust of the Board of Trustees at Wright State,” said Matthew Ingram, senior lecturer in finance who teaches the investing course. “The students are excited to add a new asset class to the Real Money Investing portfolio.”

Expanded opportunities

The new source of funding will allow the students to expand their investment management experience from a portfolio of equities (stocks) to an additional portfolio of fixed-income products, (bonds).

Fixed-income products are a significant part of the global financial system, Ingram said.

“The students will try to maximize returns by studying the interest-rate markets, company balance sheets and various economic indicators,” he said.

The new funding was announced during the April 29 meeting of the Finance, Audit, Governance, and Compliance Committee of the Wright State Board of Trustees.

Experiential learning at its best

Members of the committee expressed excitement that the university is providing the students an additional opportunity to develop their investment skills.

“There are a lot of fine high-value careers in fixed-income analysis and management,” said Doug Fecher, chair of the Finance, Audit, Governance, and Compliance Committee and former president and CEO of the Wright-Patt Credit Union. “So, a student-direct fixed-income fund will be a great experience for our students and I think will lead to them getting very high-value career opportunities upon graduation.”

Trustee Andy Platt, managing director and financial advisor at Northwestern Mutual Dayton, said giving students the “best experience to learn, develop” their investment skills make them “much more attractive when they are looking for employment.”

“It is amazing the amount of successful financial planners, CFAs in the 30s, 40s and 50s … working in the Dayton region,” continued Platt, who graduated from Wright State in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in finance.

Students develop skills in risk management and company valuation in the Real Money Investing course and learn how to complete detailed research and pick stocks and present their findings and ideas.

“The Department of Finance and Financial Services has set up a framework for investment management in the Real Money Investing course that allows the students to learn by doing,’” Ingram said. “We believe that experiential learning is an essential part of a finance graduate’s education.”

To learn more about the Raj Soin College of Business, visit wright.edu/business, email rscob-admin@wright.edu, or call 937-775-2437.

View the original story at bizjournals.com