The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition that provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis. Students gain real-world experience as they assume the role of a research analyst and are tested on their ability to value a stock, write an initiation-of-coverage report, and present their recommendations. Liz Tashjian helps advise the teams and is calling for applications. Read Liz’s charge here:

“This annual competition involves teams of three to five students who will perform a complete equity research project on a publicly traded company. The project involves an industry-style written report, as well as an oral presentation to professional members of the CFA Society of Utah. The team will be judged against schools in Utah for the chance to travel and compete nationally against universities across the Americas. This is a great way to gain real experience in equity research, as well as add value to your resume.  This year, we hope to field two teams from the U. 

If you are interested in applying for this year’s team, please email your resume to me by Wednesday, October 22, at 3 p.m. In your email, please also include your year in school and major.

  • This project is a serious time commitment. In order to compete with schools like BYU and Westminster, you must commit a significant amount of time into each part of the project. You should plan on committing at least 10 hours each week to this project from October through March.
  • The team will work closely with Liz Tashjian, our faculty advisor, as well as an outside professional advisor. They will provide guidance and help throughout the process.
  • In order to complete much of the valuation and financial analysis required for the project, we recommended that you have completed Finance 3040. It is not required, but the project is geared towards upper division students with technical expertise.
  • There are some rules that bar participants with too much industry experience. Students who have done a summer internship are fine. Please refer to the rules for more details.

For more detail about the contest, visit the CFA’s website. Our team has made it the Americas competition both of the last two years.  Let’s see if we can do it again!”