Five Marist finance students, Jon Blake ‘18, Steve Morrison ‘18, Maura Sullivan ‘18, Dietrich Mosel ‘18, and Cory Lang ‘18, with the help of their faculty adviser Brian Haughey, have been working on an extracurricular project since October of 2017. The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition where, according to the CFA website, “Students work in teams to research and analyze a publicly traded company — sometimes even meeting face-to-face with company management. Each team writes a research report on their assigned company with a buy, sell, or hold recommendation and may be asked to present and defend their analysis to a panel of industry professionals.”
In October, the five teams members took a trip down to New York City for the announcement of the company for this year’s competition. The team found out they would soon become experts on Domino’s Pizza (DPZ).
The team spent countless hours developing a 10-page research paper as well as a presentation on the company. The first round of the CFA Challenge was on February 16th, held again in New York City. Marist’s team, along with 21 other colleges within New York State region, presented their findings in front of judges. From there, they made it into the top four finalist teams that also included Fordham University, Seton Hall University, and Binghamton University.
Two weeks later on March 2nd, Marist traveled back to New York City to compete against the finalists.
Beating out top 3 other teams, the Marist team will be moving onto the Americas Regional Championship, which is taking place in Boston this year. They will be competing against teams from North America, South America, Central America, and Latin America
Jon Blake said, “We’re excited that our hard work paid off at this stage of the competition and we look forward to continue on and represent Marist in the Americas Regional Championship”
Marist student groups have participated in this challenge in the past, but this is the farthest the team has made it. Congrats to all team members and best of luck in Boston!
Madison Gabor, Class of 2018