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Sasha, our previous president came back to visit during our 11.9 meeting. Welcome back, Sasha!

Sasha talked about her experience in Bryn Mawr. She was a Math major and was involved in OIG for all of her four years at Bryn Mawr. She talked about her internship experience in her sophomore year. It was an internship at the Law department of ACT.  She worked as a credit analyst and sorted all the finance related news. As an intern, she also worked on projects with other interns and this helped all the interns get to know each other.

Sasha mentioned wishing that she had started making use of the CDO resources earlier. She also mentioned the importance of maintaining connections with alumnae and other contacts in companies you may wish to intern or work for.

Sasha has been working for Vanguard since her graduation from Bryn Mawr. She is now in her first-year rotation process. This year’s work mainly is aim to establish group work ethics, to think critically, to communicate with people and to be familiar with each department.

So far, her daily responsibilities include taking phone calls and answering clients’ questions. This routine job helps her know the products of Vanguard and get to know the company better.

Sasha then talks more about Vanguard. It is a mutual fund company. Vanguard also helps its clients process 401K forms, retirement plans and  provides other financial services. She also mentioned some other famous mutual funds companies, such as Fidelity. Vanguard always keeps its expense lowest in the industry. Vanguard is conservative, but it has been devoted to recruit more female workers. In fact, we have a lot of Bryn Mawr alumnae working at Vanguard right now.

Sasha advices those want to have a job in finance industry to start their preparations early. To start talk to different people in finance and research online, and be prepared for behavioral interview questions, be able to elaborate on your resume and be updated about current events.

Another member asked about her experience in Bryn Mawr and how to have a wonderful resume during four years in Bryn Mawr. She didn’t give specific guidelines. Generally, sports are great. Any working experience, including working in dining can be transfer skills to be elaborated on resume. All the working experiences can help you learn to be delegate, and learn to talk to different people and become a good team worker. Sasha used her experience as an Ann Taylor salesperson to express her point. This job helped her to learn to get people buy Ann Taylor products and being friendly. Basically, any experiences can help in some ways and ore relevant experience gradually would be better. She mentioned that Vanguard took voluntary work into consideration. She talked about advantages of a Liberal Arts education as well. She also reminded us of the importance of our Honor Code. Ethical people are always valued in this industry. Overall, the most important thing is to be familiar with skills you learned and be confident so as to be able sell yourself during an interview.

Dear all,

Thank you so much for coming to our OIG meeting. OIG is thinking about inviting a professional to have a workshop on resumes. This workshop will focus on resumes for positions in financial firms. We plan to hold a workshop during the week and we will invite Bryn Mawr alumna June Lee who is currently working in Morgan Stanley. We will have lunch together on November 23rd, 2011. We will ask her some questions to get more insights about the working environment in Morgan Stanley and some general information about interviews and internships. We will also be having our winter party and there will be tons of wonderful food. Please come and join us for the celebration at the end of the semester.

Wanda did a presentation about the stock of General Electric. GE provides various services to different industries. It’s one of the early companies, called bluest of blue chip. The latest earning call showed steady growth especially in the energy sector. GE is considered as undervalued compared to its peers. Volatility of GE flows with market. GE has the highest Beta (a number describing the relation of its returns with those of the financial market as a whole) compare to its competitors. It was held by 46 hedge funds compared to MMM(29) and CSL(15), TYC(48).

GE just renewed its contracts to service two nuclear power plants in Spain. It’s a long-time safe stock.

The stock we bought last week Schlumberger ended 72.74. It looks like the stock is doing good.

We decided to do wait to a later date about GE. Also, we want more members to look into more stocks in emerging countries.

Dear all,

Lingyi started off the meeting by talking about our portfolio. We will make the decision about some stock purchase in subsequent meetings. We will look more into safe stock, which generates cash but doesn’t have much growth potential. Our portfolio is really heavy in technology and industrial stocks.  Later we will might think about shifting our focus more to conservative side of the investment.

We had a brief but condensed market update session. Several of the updates caught our attention. First, the situation in Greece and Italy has improved. Second, the home sales were up 6% compared to last month. Third, stock market performed better than expected this week. Fourth, European crisis seems to be under control.

Lingyi went over our portfolio. Due to the better performance of the whole market, our portfolio did out-performing market this week. In order to find a better source of growth, we looked at the some possible change in our portfolio. Our portfolio has a high percentage of high-tech stocks. They may be volatile during market panic. Therefore, we need to start to look at utilities stock that will help us sustain in bad times.

Firstly, we looked at LMT (Lockheed Martin Corporation). It is an American global aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technology company with worldwide interests. Its biggest customer is NASA. Every year, LMT gets many orders from NASA. However, due to recent cut in the US’ military budget. LMT might be affected by the major government policies changes. We decided to look at Lockheed Martin again when it goes down.

Secondly, Alia did a presentation about Schlumberger Limited. It is world’s largest oilfield services company. Today Schlumberger supplies the petroleum industry with services such as seismic acquisition and processing, formation evaluation, well testing and directional drilling, well cementing and stimulation, artificial lift, well completions and consulting, and software and information management. The company is also involved in the groundwater extraction and carbon capture and storage industries. It’s a cyclic stock. It covers many diverse field related to Oil Industry and provides services in 80 different countries. We think it will be a good choice in terms of long term performance.

We made the decision to buy Schlumberger. We voted to decide number of shares to be 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 or 100 shares. We ultimately decided to make purchase of 30 shares of Schlumberger. The expected growth is upside 75 and downside 60 dollars. We will talk be sorting out the problem of no one taking care of the portfolio during the summer shortly.

Thank you all for coming too this week’s OIG meeting. Hope everyone had a wonderful fall break. We will have more exciting stuff for the second half of semester.

This week is club donations. This is an OIG tradition that holds every semester where we donate up to 2000 dollars to campus clubs as a way of giving back to Bryn Mawr.

The first club is the CCSA (Chinese Culture Study Association). CCSA is asking for funding for their Chinese New Year Dinner. This will be a Bi-Co event and about 85 guests are expected. The treasurer of CCSA presented the list of the items, including food (both raw and processed) and beverages that they plan to have at the dinner. They planned to purchase all the items in Chinatown. The time of the dinner will be early February. The are asking for 560 dollars.

The second club is the ASA (Asian Students’ Association). Members from ASA are asking for funding for the Asian Culture show on the November 12. In order to match the theme of this year’s culture show, this is diversity in Bryn Mawr Campus. They plan to invite Philippine dance team and perform Chinese ribbon dance. They ask for funding for miscellaneous items including food and guests and ect. The total budget of the event will be 3000 dollars. The amount they asked for is 500 dollars

The third group is the ‘Seven Sisters in China’. The goal of ‘Seven Sisters in China’ is for women from Seven Sister schools to have better communication and connections among themselves. The presenter showed a video about the conference in Beijing, China. The video talks about the conference they had in Beijing. The reason why OIG should donate the money is to help spread word about Bryn Mawr. The estimate amount is 3000 dollars. The amount they are asking from OIG is 600 dollars.

The fourth club, MUN presents its proposal to support the club to go to Model United Nation Conference in UPenn. They want all the delegates will be able to go to the conference from Thursday to Sunday. MUN ask for funds to reimburse the transportation for 12 of their members. They have funding from SGA  but they still need 300 dollars to cover transportation costs.

The fifth club is the Art club. They are asking for money from OIG to purchase new sewing machines in the art studio. They have a total of three sewing machines and, two of three are working poorly and one of them is completely broken. The art club provides sewing class with their own funding. Both classes and sewing machines are open to all people at campus.

After the discussion in the group about the donation decisions, we decided to give four of the five clubs the money they requested.

Dear all,

Thanks for coming to OIG’s last meeting before fall break. Sophia introduced a form created by our previous president Sasha. This form will help us keep a record of all the stocks we purchase henceforth. The form will record some detailed information about the stock we purchased, including the PE, Beta and stock number at the time we purchase the said stock.

Lingyi went over our portfolio starting with a video talking about market updates. The financial crisis in Greece continues to have an impact on the global financial market. Microsoft and Yahoo are reported to prepare their financial books. Market has different attitude towards Bernanke’s new economy stimulate plan. We had the big news about the passing away of Apple’s former CEO and co-founder, Steve Jobs. We would be anxious to find out more about how that new would affect our portfolio because Apple occupies a big proportion in our portfolio.

Bank of America and Morgan Stanley both need to find enough capital to meet new regulations. Morgan Stanley faces more problem because its exposure to European debts.

Lingyi start her presentation about the market. There several distinct features about current market:

•  Banking sectors, it’s hard to find anyone doing well,
•   Market is at its cheapest in 20 years, which means it has the best buying opportunities,

Lingyi recommended REIT (real estate investment trust), to be good options for OIG’s future investments. They are usually stable compared to other sectors in the market because most come from stable sources, like rent for real estate. Because of the stable cash generating, they give out dividends and usually don’t profit much from the transaction.

The specific stock Lingyi recommend is HCP, which is a REIT company. HCP is a defense stock. The five compositions of the company include hospitals, senior housing and health care. The net assets are worth about 18.6 billion dollars. The negative potential problem is changes in government policies such as cuts in funding for health care. Also hospital revenue might be affected by acquisition, and cash generated more concentrated in certain sectors.

The members voted to decide to look at HCP at a later date. If there are any stocks you are particularly interested and want OIG to consider purchasing, let one of the Exec Board members know about the stock.

Wanda presents the words of the day.

• EPS: Earnings per share (Net income –dividends on preferred stock) /average outstanding shares
• PE ratios: market value per share/ EPS,

Despite the careful calculation of each ratio, the indexes of ratios are only just one of the measurements of the stock. To make the decision, we will need more information about the operation of the stock and company. We looked at several companies with odd EPS or PE ratio, such as LinkedIn.

For the week after the fall break, we will have one of OIG’s tradition club donations. Please look forward to our emails about the New York trip on October 21^st.

Thanks all for coming to OIG’s this week’s meeting.  We had our Careers in Finance tutorial. Sophia already sent out the PowerPoint slide we presented through OIG mail list. You can always go back and look through it again

Firstly, Lingyi went through our portfolio with the updated situation in Market. The general performance of the market is weak and most of our stocks are

In general there are six sectors in Finance:

• Investment Banking
• Equity research
• Equity Sales & Trading
• Fixed Income Sales & Trading
• Asset Management
• Private Client Services

Wanda started talking about her experience during her summer Internship in Investment banking. She introduced everyday life of an intern in a small investment bank firm.  As an intern, she was responsible for all the paperwork of excel chart and PowerPoint presentation and Public Information Book (PIB). She said you have to enjoy what you did to be able to survive the long hours in firm. She told about different kind of lifestyles depend on the locations and size of the firms. Any firms outside New York will have better hours and larger firm like Goldman Saches, Morgan Stanley have more opportunities in choosing clients and deals She also talked about some useful courses which are helpful for entering level analyst, such as Statistics and Accounting.

Sophia then talked about equity research from both buy side and sell side. The focus of equity research in buy side and side are different. In buy side, every researcher needs to focus on 30-40 companies in once specific industry. On the other hand, sell side has early hours and in specific industry. The working hours for equity research are more flexible sometimes you can even work at home. Sophia emphasized the importance of the Liberal Arts education in writing and communication skills in the equity research.  Also, like the many other jobs in Finance, the ability to work with others and attention to details are very important as well.

Lingyi talks about sales and trading and fixed income.  Traders have the most stressful bur regular hours. The most convention path in sales and trading starts from floor calling. An inexperienced broker can call up to 400 people on a list a day follow experienced people.

Yiran talked about asset management. Generally, this  is a harder industry to enter with requirement of having assets to start with. Many portfolio managers have previous experience in various aspects of Finance industry.  The bet way to break in this industry is do start to work for the Marking and trust department.

Wendy talks about Private Clients service briefly. Their primary responsibilities are to remind their clients of all the potential risks in the market and to help them make the best decision in maximizing profits.

For next week, we will be visiting our portfolio and make some decision about make changes about our portfolio. If you like gambling , we hope to see you at our weekly meeting on Wednesday night Taylor G ay 9 pm

Thank you coming to our second meeting. We had a full house.

Sophia started introducing the market by showing a video about Bear vs. Bull market. She talked about he power of  investing.

• Investment requires time commitment
• Investment requires investors do intensive homework, keep up with the latest news and reading all the 10 K, 10 Q reports of different equities.
• Investing is not gambling. Sometimes, luck can be important in investment. However, investors don’t rely on luck to make rational decisions.
• Investment involve both benefits and risks.

Lingyi talked about different assets, three different assets we can invest in a vanilla version and a more complex version. For OIG, we only invest stocks.

Lingyi talked about the fixed income as well. There four categories in fixed income, US Credit ( industrial companies issuing debts), US High Yield ( riskier company), Structural Products, Emerging Market Debts( international government). When talked about cash, we also need to take inflation rate into consideration.

 The difference between bonds and equities:

• Bonds are considered safer because of coupon
• Equities are issued by companies go public, and the price of stock fluctuates, dividends and transactions are two way investors benefit.

Wanda introduced Market Capitalization, which refers to the total dollar market value of all of a comapny’s outstanding shares, and is is used to determine company size.  She gave examples of Small Cap, Mid Cap, Large Cap and Micro Cap.

We had a small discussion about Penny stocks, which are share that are $5.00 and are traded over the counter. The liquidity of Penny Stocks market is the main reason most investors don’t focused on the Penny Stocks.

Yiran talked about NASDAQ, S&P, Dow Jones. They are all most common indicator of the performance of the stock market. OIG often use them to evaluate the performance of our portfolio. The five year performance of three index showed that the indexs are closely related to the market changes.

Wendy talked baout  international  investment, or investment in emerging markets. They are usually processed through mutual funds, or US traded foreign stocks. The risks involved in International stocks are the restricted access to companies operation status as well as exchange rate.

We will talk about different career opportunities in Finance next week. Hope to see you all again.

Dear all,

Sorry for the late posts on the minutes of of Owl Investment Group. I am still working though the blog system and I will try to keep the updated on time start from this week. Please let me know if you have any suggestions on the blog or if there is anything you want to see on our blog.

We had a sucessfull promotion at Fall Frolic. Many people showed interests and signed up.

Thank you all for coming to the first OIG meeting this semester. 

We will be having our weekly meeting at Taylor G from 9 pm to 10 pm every Wednesday this semester. OIG publicist Wendy will send out emails about meetings every week through OIG email list. Just sign up if you want yo keep updated or see our blog.

On the first meeting, the Board members introduced themselves.

Sophia Abboud 12′ President, Psychology Major

Lingyi Sun 12′ Portfolio Manager, Economics Majoy

Wanda Lee 12′ Treasurer , Cities Major

Wendy Huang 14′, Publicist, Mathematics Major

Yiran Zhang 14′ Secretary, Mathematics Major.

We also invited everyone else introduce themselves with their class year, majors/potential majors, why they are interested in OIG and what did they do during summer.  If you want  your introduction posted on the Member section on our blog, just send me an email  about your major, interest and I will update those soon.

Firstly, all the members came to the meeting voted on the new Logo for OIG and gave the $ 25 gift card to the winner. Yeah!  Hopefully we will be able to put the logo on the blog soon.

Sophia did an awesome presentation to introduce the background on the OIG and the future plans for this semester.  There are several thing we are hoping to achieve this semester

• Set up new system on picking stock and keep a record of every new purchase.
• Make some adjustment on the current portfolio concerning the unbalanced proportion in each sectors.
• Workshops on our new stock instrument tools, MorningStar, Capital IQ
• Career tutorial on Finance, Consulting and Management
• New York Trip( we will hopefully meet with people from BlackRock), a Friday around the end of October and attendence will be the only  factor that we used to decide who will attend. Transportation will be covered. Come to our meetings and remembe rto sign in. 
• Club donations
• Guest speaker
• Resume, interview workshop
• Board will put up a Market update and post on the blog

Next week, we will talk about some basic knowledge in stock market. Hope to see you all again.

Dear all,

Thanks for coming to OIG’s weekly meeting on Valentine’s Day. All the single ladies rock!!:) (and non-singles alike.)

We kicked off with an introduction of futures. Future is a riskier investment option than options. For details, please consult investopedia.

Yufan did a great market re-cap. She introduced us to Boston Beer Company（SAM). After selling EROC, we have been thinking for a really long time to buy a new stock. Yufan backs this stock on several grounds.

• Successfully withstood the financial crisis
• Has no debt or obligations to service, which is a huge plus
• International market presence and great earning forecast

However, our members also voiced out some concerns about SAM:

• Price too high (running at 94 at the time of decision)
• PE much higher than industrial average or major competitors （29+）
• Earnings report will be released pretty soon by the end of March

As usual, we held a vote, and reached a consensus of buying 30 shares of it at $90. If you have any questions or concerns about this stock, please contact Yufan.

P.S. Our club donation is coming out soon. It is operated on a first come first served basis. If you or your club want to get OIG funding, you will need to be the first 5 people to submit a proposal to our publicity chair Sophia Abboud. Look out for Sophia’s email.

It is the annual hell week’s time for Bryn Mawrtyrs. Enjoy this special time of the year with your heller (or hellee)!