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Market update this week includes: US stocks have been on rise due to strong housing data. However labour market is still weak as job market condition is still uncertain. Also, Tesla Motors has been doing very well and has gone up 18% over past two sessions to an all-time high. Facebook acquired What’sapp , which is an instant messaging service for smartphone, for $19 billion. Currently, facebook dominates global market. Line, which is similar to Whatsapp, is preparing its IPO as well and is currently evaluated around 27 billion. T-mobile’s revenue increases but was not as much as expected.

Portfolio update: New changes have been made in our portfolio since our last meeting. In order to diversify our portfolio management team bought stocks such as Alaska Air group, Simon Property group and JP Morgan. Our portfolio has been performing modestly and has currently increased by 17%. Also, Bryn Mawr is participating in Adirondack Competition and is currently second in position.

After the portfolio update, Bryce presented about “Bull and Bear Market”. Bull Market is associated with market which is trending upward with ¾  of all stocks rising. Generally, it has high consumer confidence and low unemployment level. Also it is considered to be spending market. On the other hand Bear Market is trending downwards with ¾ of all stocks decreasing. Generally, it is a selling market with low consumer confidence. US market right now is a dying bull market. Although stocks have been increasing, it is mostly because of the money fed by the Fed into the economy. For more information you can go to : http://www.investopedia.com/university/stocks/stocks7.asp

After the presentation, Dingwei asked a market sizing brain teaser. Everyone got into pairs and tried to solve the problem. The question was “How many trains are there on the London Underground?” The link for the answer is: http://www.oliverwyman.com/careers/join-us/interview-preparation/brain-teasers.html

Meet Amy Loftus ‘90, the Executive Vice President at Accolade, Inc. She has more than 20 years of experience in consulting, with a focus on health care. Don’t miss this great opportunity! Tue, 28 Jan. Noon-1:15pm @  at Pen Y Groes (The President’s House1007 Wyndon Ave. Corner of North Merion and Wyndon).

As the new semester begins, our Adirondack Cup Competition* Bryn Mawr Team brings us some great news as they moved into second place for the first time in the school’s history! Congratulations, and keep it up Owls!

*Adirondack Cup is an annual competition whereby the participating teams hypothetically invest in small cap companies. The team with highest return wins.

The meeting started at 9:10 pm.

Kathy did a quick market update. Consumer Price Index(CPI), a measure of Inflation, fell in October largely due to drop in energy prices. Inflation still remains low, below the target of 2%.Lower CPI could provide Fed officials with more reasons to continue the bond buying program in upcoming months. Also, JP Morgan announced an additional $13 billion settlement with US department of justice. On the other hand, Asian Markets started the week higher with Chinese stocks among the top gainers. Beijing released a more detailed reform plan outlining more foreign investment in the financial sector and a revamp of initial public offerings.

 After that Bryce did quick portfolio update. Quantitative easing was tapered on Tuesday due to which our stocks were affected. Quantitative easing, according to Investopedia, is an unconventional monetary policy in which a central bank purchases government securities or other securities from the market in order to lower interest rates and increase the money supply.

Then, Dingwei did a presentation on Interview skills. Interviews focus on three different skills: technical, behavioral and personal. She presented on behavioral and personal skills. Few points were:

• Research your employer and know what they are trying to look for you
• Use powerful words
• Be concise
• Reflect yourself in the interviews

Then she showed us two different ways of tackling behavioral skill section of interview:

-STAR:Setup,Task Action,Result

-PARADE:Problem, Anticipate, Role, Action, Decision Making rationale, End result

After the quick presentation on behavioral interview skill, the meeting ended.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! We will meet you in Taylor G at 9pm on December 4. Have a nice holiday!

 

The meeting started at 9:10 pm.

Kathy did a quick market update. Snap Chat turned down offer of acquisition by Facebook. In international arena, Japan posted a higher than average trade surplus for September, which led to the appreciation of Yen. China concluded its political meeting-Third Plenum- on Tuesday. It decided to cut down the growth rate to 7% to focus more on sustainable outcome. There was a good news on the domestic side as the jobs in US increased by 204,000 in October.

After the market update, Laura, one of the members of Portfolio Management Team, presented a stock pitch about Constellation Brands. Constellation Brands lies in consumer goods sector and falls under Beverages industry. It produces and distributes branded wines and spirits and is the marketer of imported beers. It had the P/E ratio of 7-9 and Earnings per Share was $8-9. The final decision about its purchase will be taken by the Portfolio Management team.

Then, we watched Shark Tank video, which gave us insights about stock pitches.

The meeting ended at 9:45 pm. See you all again next Wednesday at Taylor G!

The meeting started at 9:10 p.m

Kathy did a quick market update. Twitter finally set its IPO price at $26 with 70 million of its shares sold. On the other hand Blackberry’s plan to sell its business to Fairfax has failed. Instead the firm will receive $1 billion convertible-bond investment from Fairfax. Tesla also had bad news as its shares dropped by 16%. Dell, on the other hand, became private.

Then, Bryce did a quick market update. We sold McDonalds and Proto labs from our portfolio. Mcdonalds, although a solid blue chip company, was not showing growth for three years while Proto labs took a dip.

After the market update Yaxuan, one of the members of Portfolio Management team, presented a stock pitch about Valeant Pharmaceuticals in health sector. It is a publicly traded multinational pharmaceuticals company which falls in defensive sector. It has diversified product portfolio which presents it with a diverse revenue system. There is potential of growth because of their innovations in their field. Moreover, because they have low beta score their stocks are stable. The entire portfolio management team will look further into the stock pitch and make a decision.

Following the stock pitch, Dingwei provided everyone with a brain teaser, with the question being “how many golf balls were manufactured in USA per year?” Since such questions are actually used in job interviews, this was a fun yet rewarding activity for OIG members to do. The answer to this question, along with its methodology can be found in this website: http://brainteaserbible.com/interview-brainteaser-market-sizing-golf-balls-sold

The meeting ended at 10:00 pm. See you all next Wednesday at 9:00 pm in Taylor G.

The meeting started at 9:10 pm.

Kathy did a quick Market update. Twitter IPO finally set its price at $17-$20 per share and is planning to sell 70 million shares.It is the second largest  IPO share for Internet company after Facebook. Apple has a strong outlook in stock market due to strong ipad growth. Last Friday, October 25 NASDAQ’s (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) composite index neared 4000, powered by gains in Microsoft and Amazon.This was a significant moment since the last time the market reached this peak was on September 8, 2000, the last tech bubble. Also, Amazon has increasing revenues but zero profits since it is “A charitable company being run by elements of the investment community for the benefit of consumers”. Moreover, Fed will maintain its current asset purchase program.

Then,Bryce gave an update on our Portfolio. Our current portfolio consists of nine different stocks as follows:

• Apple
• Alliance Data System
• Buffalo Wild Wings
• Under Armour
• Methode Electronics
• McDonalds
• Sprouts Farmers Market
• Sanchez Energy Corp
• Proto Labs

Most of the companies we have in our portfolio have high P/E ratio. Unless one is doing Value investing, one should not completely base off his portfolio decisions on P/E ratios. We currently have only $20,000 invested in our portfolio while we still have $100,000 in cash. So we encourage people to do stock pitches and bring more diverse companies to our portfolio!

After the update on our portfolio, Dingwei showed everyone two short videos on how to do a proper stock pitch. According to the videos, stock pitch should start with investment thesis. Then it should move on with Business revenue breakdown, company’s SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threats), business efficiency, valuation and catalysts. The conclusion should consist of a summary of the everything one has talked about with particular focus on “Why should the stock be bought now?”.

The meeting concluded at 10pm. We will see you again on Wednesday, November 6 at Taylor G.

Did you know?

Blue Chip Company: According to Investopedia, Blue Chip company is a “A nationally recognized, well-established and financially sound company.” McDonalds, which is also in our portfolio, is a blue chip company.

Mr Jim Clarke, here on referred to as Mr. Clarke, started the talk with a brief introduction about his work. Mr Clarke is the Co-manager of Brandywine Global Investment. He started off as financial analyst in Morgan Stanley, right after his graduation from Williams College and later on took on the path of value investing in Brandywine.

“Value Investing is an interesting way to invest capital”. With this he started talking about value investing. He shared an interesting story about technology stock prices in early 2000’s. The technology stock prices soared up due to the innovations in Microsoft. While everyone was after the technology stock shared, he and his company ended up buying Ball corporation’s stock, a company selling beverage cans. The reason for this was because the stock prices were significantly cheaper. According to Mr Clarke“You won’t buy the company everybody loves” because the costs are too high.

 Then he moved on to talk about the price,value and cost. Price is what you pay and value is what you get. He talked about Margin of Safety which is the difference between cost and value. Margin of safety is an important determinant in the stock market.

 He compared stocks to tiny pieces of business and told us to ask yourself the same questions you would ask as if you were buying a new business. One should look at the market price, cost, net earnings and debt as well as Assets and Liabilities. Only after taking all the aspects into consideration should one proceed with the purchase of the stocks.

 Concluding his talk on value investing, Mr Clarke ventured into “how to get an internship in this sector”. Four advices he gave were:

1. Should be ready to play with numbers

2. Read Wall Street Journal

3. Read books on investing

4. Networking with alumni in the respective field

He further suggested to not let few hundred dollars stop you from taking a job. After that we entered a Q/A session with students asking him questions ranging from investment, value investing to different job opportunities.

The talk ended at 10:15 pm. We would like to thank Mr. Jim Clarke for holding his talk and taking some time out from his busy schedule.

See you on Wednesday, 30th October. Until then “Buy fear and Sell Greed”!

This Wednesday, Oct 23rd, 9pm@Taylor G , Owl Investment Group will host a talk on value investing and investment research . We have the honor to invite Jim Clarke as our guest speaker. Mr.Clarke is the co-manager and head of Brandywine’s research of a $5 billion US large cap product.  He earned his B.A. in History from Williams College where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude. He later earned an M.B.A. in Finance from Columbia University. Prior to his initial term of employment with Brandywine Global, Mr.Clarke worked as a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley in New York and Tokyo (1991-1995). And from 1997 to 2005, Jim worked as an equity analyst and portfolio manager for Brandywine Global’s large, mid and small cap value equity portfolios and was responsible for research coverage of the machinery and REIT sectors, contributing insight and stock recommendations for all of the firm’s domestic equity products. Mr.Clarke had a five year track record in the top 10% managing Brandywine Global’s US small cap product for clients including Coca Cola from 2000 to 2005.

Mr.Clarke will talk about value investing and answer questions about career paths in the field.

 

Annual Summer Internship Panel started at 9:05 pm in Taylor G.

The panelists presenting their summer internship experiences were six students from Bryn Mawr and Haverford. Their name and their internship organization were as following:

• Ethan Pan : Citi, Institutional Clients Group
•  Erin Wilder: Citi, Global Markets; BNP
•  Amy Zhao : The Vanguard Group, Portfolio Review Department
•  Ivy Gluck : Brandywine Global Investment Management, Large Cap Value Team Product
•  Tom Yi : Richmond Hill Investment, Value-investing hedge fund
•  Judy Yeung: Jardine Matheson, Finance and General Services Department

The panelists first shared their general experience about their internships and what they did. Their internship activities ranged from doing stock pitches, researches, auditing reports to fund mapping and transaction banking. Then they talked about the most rewarding part of their internship, which included being acknowledged as a worker by senior members, client interactions as well as auditing reports.Their biggest challenges in internship were getting accustomed to the work environment, making recommendations to senior members, learning about political policies and coming out of the comfort zone.

Moving on to application process for their respective internships, each one of them had something different to offer. Erin talked about Boston Career firm while Ivy and Judy emphasized the importance of Bi-Co resources such as Lantern Lake and externships.

“You don’t need how to calculate premium price of option, what you need to know is what is happening in the market, and have a genuine love for finance.” As quoted by Erin this was the major theme of the advice from all panelists. They encouraged us to utilize our analytic background, provided by Liberal Arts environment and start learning few financial terms to show your interest.

After a brief Q/A session, the Annual Summer Internship Panel ended at 10 pm.

We would like to thank all our panelists for taking out time from their busy schedules to come and talk to interested students.  Good luck for your future endeavors!