FIR student team places third in the local round of the CFA Global Investment Research Challenge

For release:  March 13, 2018

Finance students Reagan Anthony, Dylan Ledbetter, Ben Reaves, and Blake Williams, representing the Fogelman College, placed third in the local round of the CFA Global Investment Research Challenge. The team was led by Professor Nap Overton.

Regional schools competed in the local challenge by researching and analyzing a publicly-traded company (JB Hunt this year), preparing a written research report summarizing their findings, and then presenting their findings to a panel of judges made up of local investment professionals. CFA Society Memphis hosted the local competition. The winner of the local competition advances to the regional competition, and the winner of the regional competition advances to the global competition with teams from schools around the globe. Team members invest considerable time and effort preparing for this competition each year, though no academic credit is received. Team members essentially have the experience of being securities analysts. They make a case for holding or selling stocks and defend the buy.

"Congratulations to Blake, Ben, Dylan, and Reagan for an excellent job representing the University of Memphis and the Fogelman College in the 2018 CFA Global Investment Research Challenge," said Professor Nap Overton.

The CFA charter is a leading global designation for finance professionals. The Department of Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate has four CFA charterholder faculty members (Professors Jain, Mathis, McInish, and Overton). They help aspiring students with advanced materials in their courses and they provide the wisdom of many years of experience in the financial industry to prepare for this challenging and rewarding career path. Professor Overton plays a key role in bringing many CFA Institute University and society scholarships to students, mentoring student teams for inter-university competitions, and maintaining FIR program recognition and affiliation. The Finance BBA and MSBA Finance degree programs of the Fogelman College of Business and Economics are included in the CFA Institute's University Affiliation Program.

CFA is a registered trademark owned by the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute.