Five students from Towson University’s College of Business and Economics showed who has the region’s best finance acumen, winning a local competition in the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute Investment Research Challenge on Feb. 27.
The research challenge competition requires groups to create and present the most effective equity research report and presentation about a real, publicly traded company. Towson’s Matthew Appelbaum ‘15, Brandon Fanelle ‘15, Tyler Rees ‘15, Joseph Schisselbauer ‘15 and Steven Seeley ‘15 compiled and presented their report on Avalon Bay Communities, a company that develops, acquires and manages apartment homes. All five Towson students are majoring in BUAD with a finance concentration.
Towson’s representatives, led by faculty advisor Jian Huang, competed against students from University of Baltimore, Johns Hopkins, Loyola, Maryland, American and Georgetown to advance to the Americas Regional on April 15-16 in Atlanta, Georgia where they will face teams from North and South America. The Global Final will take place on April 17, also in Atlanta.
The annual contest requires participants to research and analyze a publicly traded company and work with a CFA charterholder, who mentors the group during the research process and reviews and critiques its report. The report is then scored by a group of judges and presented to a panel of experts from top financial institutions. The team with the highest combined written report and presentation score is the winner and advances to the regional competition. At the regional and global levels, teams are evaluated solely on their presentations.
