Market Update – by Trista Yang Cao:

• Last week, the main indexes booked a fourth straight weekly gain with the majority of gains coming over the Thursday and Friday trading sessions. However, there has been a modest pullback on Monday and Tuesday this week.
• Energy stocks continue to fall while technology stocks keep rising to reach new heights on Friday last week.
• This Wednesday, the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee announced that the interest rate would still be left unchanged. However, the Fed was open to raising rates at the next meeting in December.

Stock Pitch – Estée Lauder (EL)- by Hunter Rendleman:

• OIG decided to buy EL because of seasonal trends. Since we are close to the Christmas season, consumer demand for personal products, like ones created by Estée Lauder, should increase.
• The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. manufactures, markets, and sells skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care products worldwide. Famous brands under Estée Lauder include: Aramis, Clinique, Origins, MAC, Bobbi Brown, La Mer, Aveda etc.
• The risks OIG considered when buying it include its foreign market performance and whether its high price would affect consumer demand.

Adirondack Cup Competition Introduction – by Rachael Abraham

• The Adirondack Cup is an annually held investment competition among college students that is funded by Adirondack Funds.
• In Mid October, each team submitted a portfolio, which used a hypothetical $1milion to invest in five small cap stocks among five different sectors. The competition ends in April and the result will be based on the earnings of each team’s portfolio.
• This year, led by Rachael, the team with six members met twice a week in order to build up a good portfolio. The research is mostly based on news and data in Yahoo! Finance.

 

Bianca Boranda shared her experience in her career and at Bryn Mawr. She majored in mathematics, with a minor in economics, and has been a quantitative financial analyst at Chatham Financial, a financial risk management consulting firm located in Kennett Square, PA, since graduation.

Market Update – by Camilla Dornquast:

• Central banks around the world have been dumping U.S. bonds at the fastest pace on record.
• The Fed decided not to raise interest rate.
• The lower-than-expected inflation rate in U.S caused the commodities market to not do well.

Stock Pitch – by Siran Tang:

• OIG sold ANIK in the health care sector because it has small market cap and did not do well even when ObamaCare was released.
• In replacement of ANIK, OIG decided to buy UNH, which has the second largest market cap among its peers. It is a more stable stock.
• The risk of UNH is that since it has business across states, different state laws for health care can impact its performance.

Tips for Networking – Nancy Yannan Li:

• Be prepared before the event, such as bring a polished resume, do research etc.
• Dress properly for the event. Then, during the event be confident and show your interests by asking smart questions.
• Always follow up within 24 hours by emails and LinkedIn.

Market Update – by Linh C. Nguyen:

• The Q3 market report shows the Labor market was doing well with more job openings, while Commodities and Housing markets were not doing so well with the dropping price of oil and gold.
• The U.S stock tumbled a lot in Q3.
• Microchip Credit Card became standard. News reported that it will be a different, but more secure way to pay. However, it takes time for market to adapt to it.

Stock Pitch – NETFLIX (NFLX) – by Fatema Esaa:

• NETFLIX is doing Internet television network. The outstanding points about NFLX are that it has high user credibility and weak competitors. Also it keeps expanding original content and is entering Japan and other foreign markets.
• The risk of NFLX is that it has the possibility of expanding too fast. Moreover, the Television and Music market is a volatile market. In addition, Japanese and other Asian TV markets are already very developed.
• OIG’s recommendation is: BUY.

Career Opportunities in Finance – by Nancy Yannan Li:

• Most finance jobs are divided into buy-side (hedge funds, asset managers, private equity, venture capital, mutual funds, etc.) and sell-side (investment banks, stock brokers, and market makers). They play different roles in the market.
• A financial services company is usually divided into three parts: front, middle and back office. All of them play important roles in the company.
• Consulting is not a part of the buy-side or sell-side, but is always mentioned when we talk about finance careers. It examines a client’s organization, works out the best approach to improve it, and implements agreed actions to bring about positive, lasting and profitable change.

 

Market update – by Linh C. Nguyen:

• Oil price dramatically declines over the past 14 months. Big companies suffered from paying revenues to interest on debt. Also many oil companies had laid off thousands of employees.
• Based on the concern about fragile global economy, low US inflation rate, and unstable stock market, the Fed decided to hold off from raising interest rate.
• Boeing signs massive deal to sell 300 aircraft to Chinese firm. Following is the link of this news video.

http://www.usatoday.com/videos/money/business/2015/09/23/72679276/

Stock Pitch-Why not Kors – by Hunter Rendleman:

• Michael Kors Holdings Limited (KORS) was doing extremely successful overseas and at home from the end of 2013 to 2014. During 2014, KORS had significant increase in stock price. Therefore, OIG decided to start buying KORS from Dec 2013.
• However, KORS, as a fashion company, is risky. Their supply and demand basically depends on consumers’ personal preference. They also face competition from other similar fashion brands.
• Starting from Q1 2015, people realized that KORS was overvalued, and thus the stock price drops quickly. In Sep 2015, OIG decided to sell all the shares of KORS.

Investing 101 – by Nancy Yannan Li:

• “Investing is the act of committing money or capital to an endeavor with the expectation of obtaining an additional income or profit.”
• In order to make wise investment decisions, analysis is essential. There are two types of analysis: fundamental analysis (qualitative and quantitative research) and technical analysis (statistics analyzing). For fundamental analysis, there are two approaches: top-down (start from sectors or industries to specific companies) and bottom-up (start from companies and then consider micro factors).
• Here are some useful resources: Investopedia, Yahoo! Finance, Google Finance, Wall Street Journal, Mergent Online, and Zinio Magazine Subscription.

This is the first meeting Bryn Mawr Owl Investment Group holds for 2015 fall semester.

This meeting is mainly for new students to know about OIG. Firstly, Yannan Li, the president of OIG, introduced key facts about OIG and gave a preview of the special events OIG will hold this year. Then, Siran Tang, the portfolio manager, gave a brief portfolio report. Following that, we played icebreakers and brainteasers to let members get to know each other better.

We thank all who came for their interests in OIG.

We are proud to announce our new Board Members and Portfolio Management Committee!

Board Members 2015-2016

Executive Director: Nancy Yannan Li

Portfolio Manager: Siran Tang

Treasurer: Linh Nguyen

Public Relations Chair: Camilla Dornquast

Secretary: Trista Cao

Portfolio Management Committee 2015-2016

Siran Tang
Linh Nguyen
Hunter Rendleman
Camilla Dornquast
Fatema Sheikh
Rachael Abraham

Wish the new board members and portfolio management committee the best of luck for the upcoming academic year!

Market Update

U.S Market

• Stocks higher last week on Easter Holiday
• Job Report was disappointing
• Stocks moved higher today after Fed’s minutes
• Members of FOM: appropriate to raise interest rate at June meeting
• Central bank doesn’t need a rise in core inflation before normalizing policy
• Dow up 0.2%, S&P up 0.3% and Nasdaq up 0.8%
• U.S crude oil dropped a lot

Foreign Market

• Europe’s stimulus package has caused borrowing cost to decrease significantly
• Several countries to issue 5- yr bond with negative yield
• Hong Kong stock hit seven year high

Business

• FedEx announced to purchase TNT Express for 4.4 billion Euro in cash
• Royal Dutch Shell to purchase BG Group for 69.6 billion in cash and share.(horizontal merger)

Market Update

U.S Market

• The benchmark U.S oil price jumped 5.2% to its largest one- day gain in nearly two months
• Lower than expected economic data such as private employment and manufacturing data, caused stocks to fall

Foreign Market

• Greece failed on Tuesday to reach an initial deal on reforms with its lenders, a precondition for financial.
• Chinese officials indicated that there is room to ease monetary policy to help boost economic growth

Business

Go Daddy IPO:

• Internet domain registrar and web hosting company
• IPO priced at 20 per share and opened today at 26.15, 1 41% increase
• IPO raised about $ 440 million
• Revenue rose 52% in last 3 years.

Google Smartbox

• Google announced that it will release its first version of Smartbox soon, a home- friendly, high-tech mailing box system

Stock Pitch

Skyworks Solutions Inc.

Skyworks Strategy

• Diversification
• Industry- Leading Technology
• Customer Relations
• Delivering Operational Excellence

Risk Factors

• Erosion of average selling prices of established products is typical of the semiconductor industry
• The competitive environment in the semiconductor industry
• The availability of raw materials from suppliers
• Environmental Regulations
• Demand for products generally occurs in first fiscal quarter ending in December and he lowest demand for handset products generally occurs in our second fiscal quarter ending in March
• Apple is 30% of their business so apple has a significant influence on its business

Research & Development

• Invested 226.3 million, 212.5 million and 168. Million in research and development activities during the fiscal year ended 2013,2014 and 2015

An interesting Shark tank episode that we watched:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bHSE–rqtw