By Ramiro J. Atristain
On a nice Spring 2019 afternoon at Dominican University, a group of students gather in a classroom to say hello, catch up on each other’s lives … and discuss Apple.
“I think we can allocate more funds of the Large Cap portion with Apple stock,” said Michael Cross, a Math major and a member of the Brennan Investment Club.
Some of the other attendees nodded. “We should wait a bit,” said another attendee, Melvin Cardenas, who is a Finance major and also a member of the club. “I’m bearish on buying more Apple products at this time.”
The students are members of the new Brennan Investment Club, which is called “BIC” for short. It is spearheaded by Ramiro J. Atristain, who is Executive In Residence at Brennan and now its advisor. Mr. Atristain started looking for interested students to get it going back in the Spring of 2018. By the end of Fall of 2018 semester. Anthony Nasca who is now graduated, got it going.
Why an investment club at Dominican? “It’s a format for good hands-on experience for its members and it is not just for Finance majors,” said Professor Atristain. Greta Rupeika, a Marketing major, joined in the Spring and finds the meetings full of learning.
Across the country in many business schools, investment clubs are not as common as you would think. “They once numbered in the hundreds of thousands, but they nearly disappeared after the dotcom bubble burst, followed by the housing bust, the banking disaster, and the market dive.”
Unlike many of the existing investments clubs in universities, BIC does not invest actual money yet. Instead, members meet and discuss their own research and make suggestions, and trade via a platform called “StockTrak” where they examine current trends in investing,follow specific stocks and ETFs (Exchange Trded Funds), and learn about investing for their individual portfolios in the future.
BIC’s mission is for its members to increase their financial knowledge with hands-on experience in the investment management process and to gain a broad insight into capital markets.
The club helps its members gain valuable networking opportunities in addition to how to invest your money. This Fall, they will be hosting the Investment Team from The Allstate Corporation as speakers. They also plan to host more learning sessions like that throughout the school year and invite portfolio managers and other Finance professionals.
Overall, the experience simulates real-world portfolio management scenarios. They have developed an investment policy statement, manage their allocations, analyzing companies and their markets, and managing a paper-trading portfolio across semesters. They currently do not employ riskier strategies like Derivatives (Options and Futures).
Future plans of the club are to invest with real money and participate in the annual Student-Managed Investment Fund Consortium (SMIFC)–a community of 87 colleges and universities that have investment clubs (www.indstate.edu/business/SMIFC/partners). All share a vision for student success and leadership in investing. Dominican is a member of SMIFC. Professor Atristain, a sponsor of the investment club says “in the future, the students will get a chance to compete with other clubs from other states at SMIFC.” Furthermore, he explains “the main goal now, is to improve students’ knowledge of the stock market and the world of investing, have some fun, and walk away with an appreciation for how investing works and how challenging it can be.”
The club was established late in the Fall of 2018. Its first official meeting was early in the Spring semester of 2019. Meetings have been taking place since then.
Professor Atristain, is also an Executive In Residence and Adjunct Professor at Brennan. He teaches investments, portfolio management and personal finance. He thinks BIC will be successful because a vast majority of students will invest in the stock market in future years. He states “They will have to, in order to build their retirement funds. So why not start now and build a good base of knowledge”.
Brennan Investment Club
For information or to join, go to engageDU (look for BIC under Organizations) or contact:
Melvin Cardenas, Vice President, mcardenas@my.dom.edu
Michael Cross, Treasurer, mcross@my.dom.edu
Mateusz Miskwiec, Secretary, miskmate@my.dom.edu
Anthony Nasca ‘19, Past President, nascanth@my.dom.edu
Advisor: Ramiro J. Atristain, ratristain@dom.edu