College of Business Administration
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Paying DividendsA group of College of Business Administration students have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in a classroom-based program designed to teach investing in what students, with joking sincerity, call “the real world.”The Mav Investment Club began eight years ago when Col. Guy M. Cloud contacted UNO about donating money to create a student-managed investment program. A year later,Cloud, a UNO alum who lives in Texas, provided the first donation of $250,000, which established a fund in his name. Since 2001 UNO students under the guidance of finance professor David Volkman have managed the fund, growing it to an impressive value of more than $500,000 at year-end 2007. The fund, Volkman says, also has outperformed the S&P 500 since its inception. “This feat is unusual, even for professional money managers,” says Volkman, who launched the program with just 10 students. Today the Mav Investment Club has a membership of 70 undergraduate students. Management of the fund continues even between semesters by three levels of UNO students: general members, junior analysts and senior analysts. Any student can join as a general member; junior and senior analysts must take the Principles of Investment Management course and the Portfolio Management course, respectively. “The continuity [of the club] is maintaining through the rotation of senior analysts mentoring their junior members of the club,” Volkman says. “This structure has proven to be very popular with the students at UNO.” Kayla Coleman, the club’s marketing director and a two-year member, says she has learned about investing not only from Volkman, but also from fellow students and from guest speakers who addressed a finance symposium she attended. The educational experience, Coleman says, has helped her better understand her personal finances. “I have been able to see the ramifications of my own decisions with real money, and it makes you realize that a portfolio is not something to play with,” says Coleman. “You have to be ready to wholly dedicate yourself to the management of your own future. This is a lesson that I have learned that not only applies to investments, but to real life.” Donald Spafford, a triple business major (banking and finance, investment science, portfolio management) says the club has provided helpful tools when evaluating company performances. Spafford and fellow students have learned to develop spreadsheets, quickly changing and comparing company data to determine whether the company is a good investment. Lessons on using investment software such as Research Insight and Bloomberg also have been beneficial. “These tools alone are valuable assets to help us land the career we are searching for,” says Spafford, who has been a club member for about a year. The Mav Investment Club is part of a larger investment program in the College of Business Administration at UNO, which offers financial literacy to high school students and even to UNO graduates. A summer investment camp also is part of the larger program, which provides high school students between their junior and senior years a three-day session on financial literacy. The program is extended to undergraduate students at UNO which, Volkman says, often leads to involvement in the Mav Investment Club. “Few academic institutions have focused a major in investment science such as the one at UNO,” says Volkman, who also points to the larger program’s graduate level, where students manage a $2 million fixed income portfolio for First National Bank.
Source - By Wendy Townley, University Relations - Alum Magazine
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© 2008 College of Business Administration - University of Nebraska-Omaha    
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