Carey students win investment research competition

A team of Johns Hopkins Carey Business School students took first place at the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore CFA Institute Research Challenge on February 11. The win advances them to the sub-regional round of the four-part global competition.

This marks the fourth win out of the last five competitions where Carey has had a student team place first – in 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2022. The CFA Institute did not hold a D.C.-Baltimore competition in 2021 due to the pandemic.

The annual CFA Institute Research Challenge is a global competition requiring students to research and analyze a publicly traded company, write a report, and present their buy, sell, or hold recommendations to a panel of industry experts. Teams are judged based on their research, analytical, valuation, report writing, and presentation skills.

The competition provides hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis and professional ethics. Teams receive mentoring support from a faculty advisor and an assigned industry mentor.

The Carey team consisted of all Master of Science in Finance students: Chenze Huang, Yuxin Lin, Ming Min, and Chitra Thevar. The team’s faculty advisor was Professor Su Chan.

Yuxin Lin (MS in Finance ’22), who served as team leader said she was grateful for this experience and the volume of real-world knowledge she gained.

“By working with an industry mentor who was well versed in finance, we were able to better understand the industry as a whole, which gave us a strong foundation to prepare our report,” Lin said.

Faculty mentor Su Chan noted that the Carey team worked approximately five to six hours per day on their competition entry.

“I equate this competition to being the investment Olympics. Many schools participate, and it requires a lot of endurance and effort to get through. It takes months to prepare,” said Chan.

“We had a great balance working together throughout winter break to help ease the process. Everyone contributed their own expertise to help build the report,” Lin said.

The local level D.C.-Baltimore CFA Institute Research Challenge is first in the four-part competition. Winning teams from each local level advance to the sub-regional competition with the goal of continuing to the regional and global levels. All levels contain teams from the Americas; Asia Pacific; and Europe, Middle East, and Africa regions.

Now, the team begins preparation for the sub-regional competition in mid-March where they will compete against 59 teams from the Americas.