The University of North Texas has a student group that provides financial education while offering students the opportunity to chase a goal of $1 million worth of investments.

The Student Investment Group at UNT is roughly half way to that goal, and the students are continuing to look for the right stocks to help them achieve it.

SIG OFFERS STUDENTS INVESTMENT-RELATED EDUCATION

The masters-level program gives students the opportunity to experience investing, receive investment-related education, and have support from the university to meet their goals academically and financially.

“Over the last few years, we returned about 7 or 8 percent,” SIG President Steve Shrestha said. “We are almost half way there, so it will take six or seven years, maybe more.”

“Over the last few years, we returned about 7 or 8 percent.”
SIG President Steve Shrestha

An investment fund for the SIG started in 2002 with $285,000, and jumped to $460,000 by 2014. The fund was established by a gift from Col. Guy M. Cloud Jr., a retired U.S. Army officer from Austin, that endowed not only the Student-Managed Investment Fund, but also the Student Scholarship Program at UNT.

The SIG’s goal has been to turn the initial $285,000 into $1 million worth of investments, and once the goal has been reached, the group wants to give back by offering scholarships to students.

The students invest in stocks and some bonds, including in IT and defense, as well as the consumer and health sectors. Major investments are in stocks for companies that have major value, such as the group’s investment in Apple.

The students make investments for the long term.

Marcia Staff, professor of business law and department chair for the UNT College of Business, works with the students every day. She said they are motivated, talented, and focused on managing their portfolios.

“The SIG is audited by UNT internal auditors, but also serves as a masters-level accounting class that uses SIG as a living case,” Staff said. “The SIG is the subject of the audit — they are the living case that the accounting students are auditing.”

“There is an elaborate process where portfolio managers analyze the portfolio on a regular basis using our Bloomberg terminal.”
Marcia Staff

The goal of SIG is to help students experience investing first-hand, and, in turn receive investment-related education.

“There is an elaborate process where portfolio managers analyze the portfolio on a regular basis using our Bloomberg terminal,” Staff said.

SIG has two goals, managing money and making the $1 million goal.

“As a student organization, it is open and free, so we have to get as many students as possible basically to hold events for different investment groups and bring them potential employees,” Shrestha said. “There are lots of things SIG is involved with.”

Learn more about the Student Investment Group here. 

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