For the ninth straight year, a team of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga SMILE Fund students emerged victorious in the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute Greater Tennessee Research Challenge.
Competing against primarily graduate school teams from UT Knoxville, Middle Tennessee State University, Southern Adventist University and a trio of institutions from Nashville—Vanderbilt University, Belmont University and Lipscomb University—the SMILE Fund (Student Managed Investment Learning Experience) group of Gary W.
Rollins College of Business undergraduates Justice Cardenas, Caden Christenson, Breonna Gandhi, Daniel Goodman and Kyle Leivas demonstrated financial acumen and research expertise in winning the CFA event.
The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition that challenges university teams to conduct in-depth equity analysis on a publicly traded company. Participants produce a detailed research report and present their findings to a panel of industry experts.
The SMILE Fund students are now preparing for the mid-March Southeastern sub-regionals. Teams advancing from the sub-regionals to the regional semifinals—which take place April 8-9—will be announced at the end of March.
The team’s faculty advisor is Robert L. Maclellan and UC Foundation Associate Professor of Finance Hunter Holzhauer.
“I don’t know of any other school that has won their local challenge nine times in a row. We are definitely on a hot streak,” Holzhauer said. “Last year, we said eight times is not enough. Nine is not enough. What we are really aiming to do is to win the entire global competition.
“This competition has become a source of pride for the SMILE Fund. It’s our way to tell the world that we mean business. We believe that we have the best student-managed investment fund in the world right here at UTC. The CFA Research Challenge is just one of the ways we can highlight how many wonderful students we have in the SMILE Fund and the Rollins College of Business.”