Financial Markets Program - University of Minnesota

“ Graduates from FMP
have a broader and
more in-depth skill set
than peers coming
in from other
undergraduate/graduate
institutions.”
– JULY ELIASON-JOHNSON –
Piper Jaffray, Minneapolis
were not throwing students into the ocean
to see if they could swim,” said Dean
Knudsen. “We built in oversight and
checks and balances.”
During the integration process in the
spring semester, teams are established.
According to student interest, these teams
are assigned different sectors of the S&P
500. All 10 S&P sectors are covered.
Weekly discussions attended by all
the participants allow each student to
learn about the other sectors. This allows
them to gauge how other sectors may or
may not impact the performance of their
sector that week, and jointly, students
decide what action would be best for the
Bulldog Fund, LLC.
The strategy the students utilize
employs a “portable alpha” component.
Based on their research, each team chooses
a “relative value” opportunity from within
� Employers Take Notice of Graduates Going “Above & Beyond”
EMPLOYER: Nate Bullard, Merchandise Planning Manager,
Target Corporation, Minneapolis, MN
Program Director Joe Artim in the new Wells Fargo Financial Markets Lab, opened in fall of 2008.
FMP GRADUATES EMPLOYED: Joelle Hero ‘06
“Two traits that set Joelle apart are her drive to understand root causes and her ability to get at
those root causes by synthesizing data from multiple sources. By monitoring our vendor and
competitor financial and market performance, Joelle offers the team unique insights. By tracking
customer opinions via their online shopping comments, she is able to discover and communicate
why product is selling differently than expected. And by delving into the immense amounts of data
we have available on historical sales, Joelle was able to identify patterns and recommend when
new product should be set to maximize our financial performance. These characteristics make
Joelle a very effective Sr. Business Analyst.”
8 UMD LABOVITZ SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS – FINANCIAL MARKETS PROGRAM
its sector. Teams seek to identify
opportunities to arbitrage value from likecompany
stocks; in essence, they
recommend going “long” and “short” on
certain stocks based on their analysis.
Students are exposed to three forms
of investment analysis widely using in the
industry today: fundamental, technical
and quantitative analysis. Students are
required to incorporate all three forms of
analysis into their research and
recommendations made during a
rebalance event.
Finance students are often limited in
their learning regarding investment
strategies. They may only be taught to
look at a company’s financials or
understand its strategy. The LSBE
Financial Markets Program at UMD is far
more comprehensive in its approach.
“We consider our approach very nontraditional
in respect to the way we look
at every aspect of a company before
making a play,” said Artim. “The market
may apply a valuation to a company that
we need to investigate. For example, why
is there a difference in its valuation versus
its closet competitor, even if there is not a
substantial difference in their respective
market share?”
By studying the many aspects of a
stock’s performance, students learn to
recognize when it is in play.
IOC member Bryan Amundson says
student performance during the formal