MSc Finance students win three in a row at RISE investment competition

Apr 10, 2014

MSc in Finance students from Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business have brought home gold for the third year in a row at the prestigious RISE (Redefining Investment Strategy Education) competition.

The Beedie team captured first place at RISE, hosted at the University of Dayton in Ohio from March 27 to 29, in the Balanced Investment Style category. The annual competition, now in its 14th year, features 60 teams from top universities across North America that run programs allowing students to make investment decisions with real money.

The students were rewarded for their work on the Student Investment Advisory Service (SIAS) fund. As Canada’s largest student-run investment fund, SIAS sees Beedie students managing $10.8 million of the university’s endowment portfolio.

“Our students’ performance in the RISE investment competition attests to the quality of our students, the program, and to all our staff involved,” said Jan Simon, Academic Chair of the MSc in Finance program at the Beedie School of Business. “Winning the Balanced Investment Style category for three consecutive years is evidence of the hard work that this cohort and their predecessors have invested in SIAS.”

MSc in Finance students Cicy Bai, Puxia Yu, Anastasia Lavrik and Jason Wang, travelled to Ohio to represent the SIAS fund and present the entire SIAS team’s work on the risk-adjusted return of the portfolio in the 2013 calendar year.

“The RISE competition provided a fantastic opportunity to learn from and network with celebrities in the financial sector,” said Bai. “When preparing for the competition the previous cohort provided some suggestions for our presentation, which focused on the SIAS fund’s excellent investment performance and rational investment strategy. We will strive to continue managing the fund successfully and leave in place a legacy for future cohorts to continue our success at RISE.”

The SIAS fund is Canada’s largest student-run investment fund, and one of the largest such funds in North America. The fund is managed by students from the Beedie School of Business Master of Science in Finance program, and provides them with invaluable real world investment, risk management and compliance experience.

The RISE competition runs in conjunction with the RISE student investment conference, the largest conference of its kind in the world. Each year the RISE investment conference brings internationally known leaders in the finance industry together to share their perspectives on economic and market trends, forecasts and critical issues with students, faculty and professionals.

For more information on RISE, visit www.udayton.edu/business/rise/

For more information on the SIAS fund, visit https://beedie.sfu.ca/sias/

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