FCBE Students Place First in Prelims of Global Research Challenge

For release:  March 13, 2015

A team of Fogelman College of Business & Economics students placed first in the local Mid-South round of the CFA Institute’s Global Investment Research Challenge (Global IRC). The team was led and coached by Nap Overton, instructor of Finance, Real Estate, & Insurance. Winning team members included Robert Cowan III, Matthew Buxton, Connor Whitney, and Aashish Goyal.

The team, which beat five other universities including the University of Arkansas – Little Rock, Harding University, Milsaps, Rhodes College, and the University of Mississippi, advanced to the national competition in Atlanta, GA in April. If the team continues to succeed, they have the opportunity to compete in the global finale.

The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition that provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis. The Global IRC is followed by the CFA Institute's 128,000 members as well as 144 affiliated professional societies in 69 countries and territories. At the next competition, the FCBE team will compete with teams from countries including Canada and South America.

Students worked in teams to research and analyze a publicly traded company. Each team wrote a research report on the assigned company with a buy, sell, or hold recommendation and then presented and defended their analysis in a presentation to a panel of industry professionals.

“This competition is an extremely valuable experience for the team members,” said Nap Overton, “because it puts the students in the position of being a stock analyst and pitching their recommendation to potential investors.”

“The competition has been a great supplement to my education,” said team member Conner Whitney.  “FCBE seeks to provide students the opportunity to take lessons learned from class and apply them in real-life scenarios.”

“This competition connects the theories we learn in class to real world application,” said Robert Cowan, another team member.

“We are extremely proud of our students’ exemplary performances,” said Dr. PK Jain, interim chair of Finance. “In addition, I am very grateful for the mentorship provided by Nap Overton. He has many years of experience as an equities research analyst in the investments industry and his direction of this team was invaluable.”