Fogelman College Places in Top Five in the TVA Challenge for Second Year in a Row
For the second consecutive year, Dr. Steven Jordan guided a team of FCBE students into the top five in the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Investment Challenge. The team beat out Vanderbilt, University of Tennessee—Knoxville, and the University of Mississippi. FCBE will receive a performance bonus for the team's great efforts.
The students outperformed the challenge's S&P500 benchmark by 2.58 percent.
"Only 20% of professionally managed enhanced index funds are able to beat the S&P500 index," said team advisor, Dr. Jordan. "Our students should be very proud of their accomplishments."
Dr. Steven Jordan and FCBE students utilizing real-time financial data ascertained
in the Cook Analytics & Trading Lab.
Over the last two years, Fogelman College is one of the most successfully managed and more profitable funds among all 26 universities competing in the TVA challenge.
"FCBE is extremely proud of our students' exemplary performances throughout this competition," said Dr. Jain, interim chair of Finance. "I am very grateful for the mentorship provided by Dr. Jordan. He has taken the student learning experience well beyond the classroom by travelling out of town with the student team to the TVA inter-university conferences. As the head coach Dr. Jordan routinely invites top-notch corporate leaders from the financial services industry into his classroom. His direction of the accomplishments of this team is invaluable."
The TVA Investment Challenge Program aims to provide a real-world learning experience to participating students in the field of portfolio management. Students are provided the opportunity to actively manage TVA funds by designing investment strategies, calling in trades and providing performance reports to the TVA. Students also learn how to manage real money and develop practical skills useful for making stock investment decisions, either for their own investment portfolio or for potential career opportunities in the mutual or hedge fund industries.
"The Department of Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate launched full-time classes in the Cook Lab this past spring. Since that time, student and faculty feedback has been immensely positive. Students' appetite for learning and applying fundamental and technical analysis tools has spiked manifold. Faculty, students, and industry speakers are spending countless hours outside of the classroom hours in the lab to obtain an edge over their competitors from other universities as they manage the TVA portfolio and participate in the CFA Institute global research challenge," said Dr. Jain. "University of Memphis team performance in these inter-university competitions and individual students' job-relevant skill set are expected to improve significantly because of the resources in the newly added state-of-the-art Cook Lab."