This past Monday, March 25th, the UTM Capital Management club held its closing ceremony to wrap up its activities of the 2018-2019 academic year. This club is the first student-run investment fund at UTM.
According to their Facebook page, through a partnership with Desjardins, UTM Capital Management provides students a platform to make informed investment decisions based on their ongoing research and analysis of the markets.
The Medium spoke with the club’s president Massil Beguenane about his motivation for starting the club. Beguenane explained that while other schools have investment funds, UTM lacked a legitimate one. The first objective of the club was to find a company to invest in.
Massil stated that he hopes to one day hopes to equal or surpass McGill, which started with $200,000 ten years ago and now has $4 million in its management. He explained his delight at the club’s popularity, “We’re pretty impressed with the number of people that are interested in this club in just its first year.”
During the closing ceremony, five teams split into different industries (i.e. technology, healthcare, energy) to find a viable company for the club to invest in.
Take-Two Interactive was one of the companies presented. The team representing this company had to look at the stock’s volatility, its risks, its promise, its earnings, and its debts to evaluate whether it is worth investing in. The judges decided that Take-Two was the best choice and rewarded the team $1, 000.
Among the judges were members from Desjardin, BigPictureTrading and the UTM finance faculty. Ed Rieckelman, adjunct professor, executive in residence for the UTM department of Management, and faculty advisor for UTM Capital Management. stated, “I think that understanding the global economic markets, understanding how the stock market works, and understanding how to value individual stocks are all terrific skills if you’re a finance major or accounting major. But I think they’re universal skills that are important for all of us. And I also think it can be pretty fun.”
Massil and Rieckelman hope to extend the partnerships beyond just Desjardin to increase the clout and effectiveness of the club.
