ASAP move gets some more press

Only local press - nothing major. Here at the UW, giving students $30 million is an honor, no doubt. But, giving the program this kind of money is not considered a controversy - because the school knows we'll manage it well.

Our little investment management program has been flying under the radar for years. We are all a-ok with that - because we're a tightly-knit bunch who simply love investing. Anyhow, here's a local article regarding the Board of Regent's recent decision.

Wisconsin's ASAP fund grows to $44 million

Well, the cat's outta the bag on this one now. It's published on the b-school website, so I can feel free to discuss it. The fund that we (as students in the MBA Applied Security Analysis Program - ASAP) has grown to $44 million dollars. Most of that is in Fixed-income investments, however, and the new lump sum of ~$30 million has a more specific sandbox in which the money must be put to work. But - I strongly believe that this goes to show how much the school believes in our program. After all, they have 35 years of a proven track record to look at!

For the story, click ->http://www.bus.wisc.edu/news/0153.asp

Wisconsin - Oros Speaker, ASAP 101 Macroeconomics speaker

This is my first ever blog entry from the Stephen L. Hawk Center for Security Analysis. I plan on spending more time up here these days.

Anyhow, I promised to attempt to write about the speakers we meet while we're here.

Last Thursday, the MBA program was fortunate enough to hear from Paul Leff an ASAP Alum ('83 - I think) who is one of the two co-founders of Perry Capital Management - a fairly large Hedge Fund. He spoke to the general MBA class, but mostly about investing. Following him, we had an informal speaker (over beers) with an alum from the same exact class ('83) who gave opinions on the future of the big brokerages / sell-side businesses in the investment industry. He also spoke about landing jobs and whatnot.

The following day, we had another ASAP alum ('73) who spent 3 hours talking about modeling the economy, how to deal with "macro economic shocks" and "macro economic-non events", monetary policy, and the cyclical nature of the economy.

So there you have it. Last week - 3 speakers, all who've gone on to great success in the biz.

I am not sure if I can give the names of our ASAP speakers at this time, because, at least for now I have no permission to do so. The Oros series speakers (monthly speakers who visit the entire MBA class) are published on the web, as Keven noted in the comments section of this post) Time will tell as I get into this process a little bit more whether or not sharing names is the prudent thing to do.

**Note: I obviously edited this post after the comment by Keven.

ASAP 101 begins today!

Now that our small class of portfolio managers (to be) is acclimated to the MBA rigor and have begun to peak on the "efficiency curve" (of being grad students), our ASAP 101 class begins today. The class has also been called Investing 101. The class has three purposes:

• To provide us with intros to investment analysis and tools to do so


• To meet with and learn from many investment professionals throughout the year


• To merge academics with real-world ideas and get us ready to get into the business (and, more importantly, manage the school's fund of $13M)

ASAP 101 runs for the remainder of the academic year. I will try to post a snippet of each class, that way those of you who read my blog to learn more about UW and, in particular ASAP, can get a better feel for what it's all about. Today we'll be talking about investment styles and beliefs about markets in general.

In a way, this is where the rubber meets the road. There are 10 of us this year who are going into the business and we have a plethora of resources to choose from, access to many investment pros, and we all love talking about the markets and investments. Now I'll be looking forward to Fridays!

It's the little things...

On a campus that make you smile sometimes. The MBA class of '07 is all cooped up tonight, studying for Exam #1 for most of the students (Finance majors, however, took an Econ exam today).

I am writing this post from the Memorial Union. To be specific I am sitting right near the entrance to Rathskeller - a popular area to mingle, eat, play cards, or drink beer. Yes, you can drink beer in the Union at UW (Actually, there are multiple unions and I don't know if Union South serves beer). One of the most popular hangouts on campus itself, there's also a huge patio area outside that is aptly named Union Terrace (there's also a small stage outside). It hasn't gotten too cold yet this fall, and I imagine there were people hanging out on the terrace earlier today. It's getting a little chilly this evening, however...but as I look to my left I can see Lake Mendota and there is a plethora of sailboats on the lake (should it be written as "is" or "are" a plethora?). It really is a beautiful setting.

On my walk in, I passed a student playing fetch with her golden retriever. Fetch is truly timeless game - and I'm sure that it will live on forever, or as long as dogs are man's best friend. In fact, seeing it being played brought a smile to me and actually prompted my writing this post.

Now back to the accounting...

School Update

Next week will be the first of Exams. Econ and Accounting are up on Tues and Wed, respectively.

Accounting is alot of work, but so far so good, with only a little bit of frustration. It's important for me to know this stuff in my chosen path!

Also, special thanks to KV for publishing his notes on the career changing discussion from his resume shop.

Friday, we are headed to Chicago to become Factset trained. Factset is basically financial / company / investment analyst software that supposedly allows us to do our jobs easier. This marks the first meeting of our rest-of-the-year long class, ASAP 101 - which has been called "Investing 101". Mainly there are investment professional speakers, discussions, social gatherings, and team buildings as well as investment analyses to perfom. It's all about starting to form some kind of preference to an investment style. If you're new to my blog - I'm switching careers to become a portfolio manager, somewhere :-)

I feel worried but not overly so in terms of landing that glorious internship. Our alumni network is very strong in this field, and that's one of the main reasons I chose UW (which is around #30 overall in MBA rankings).

In short, there's lots going on, and lots to do, but it's alot of fun.

Next up: Working with the Wisconsin GFO (Graduate Finance Organization) on marketing the "new" finance programs in the MBA program.

(Until 2 years ago, ASAP and ACFIN were Master's in Science, NOT part of the the MBA program - both programs have been around for a while (ASAP - 35 years, ACFIN 6 years), they just changed a little bit for the better)