Olin hosts national portfolio management competition, takes third

Eighteen university business schools, with a total of 23 teams, launched the Wealth & Portfolio Management Competition on September 1, presented for the first time by WashU Olin and Wells Fargo Advisors, with the CFA Society of St. Louis.

From then through October 6, students competed in an immersive wealth management case competition to build their awareness of the tools and techniques deployed in the professional finance world.

With hands-on access to Morningstar Direct, and Sustainalytics Global Access data platforms, as well as eMoney Advisor planning tools, teams experienced all aspects of a client/advisor private wealth management relationship. They were also exposed to environmental, social and governance (ESG) research.

WashU Olin entered a team as well, which included Linxuan Yang, WAM 2013; Siyu Lai, Xuerui Zhou, Vicky Mei, all WAM 2013; and Xinyi Pi, MSCCA 2013.

Teams were assigned weekly tasks, questions or requests from their model client that were designed to be rigorous and realistic. Finalists were graded weekly and determined by an assessment of written responses to requests from the model client, the ability to construct and manage a model portfolio and a final written “annual review” presentation. Portfolio performance was not the sole metric used to judge the teams.

The top 10 finalists from seven universities were selected by scoring five weeks of case study submissions. The 10 teams presented their final presentation and recommendations in-person or by Zoom on Friday, October 27.

The three top finishers were were: a mixed team combining Princeton University with the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in first place; Rutgers University in second place; and WashU Olin’s team in third.

Leah Maniaci, senior program manager for Olin’s Center for Experiential Learning, wrote this story for Olin’s News & Media section.

Pictured above: Third-place team members, from left, Linxuan Yang, WAM 2013; Siyu Lai, WAM 2013; Xinyi Pi, MSCCA 2013; Vicky Mei, WAM 2013 (Xuerui Zhou, WAM 2013, not pictured, was the fifth team member.