SPIFFY, the Maine Business School\u2019s student investment club, has won first-place in a rigorous, worldwide portfolio competition.<\/p>\n
The competition was part of the Quinnipiac Global Asset Management Education (GAME) VIII forum March 22\u201324 in New York City, in which 1,500 students from more than 160 colleges and universities around the globe had the opportunity to interact with industry leaders and learn best practices in investment strategy.<\/p>\n
An important feature of the annual event is the portfolio competition, which compares the performance of student managed investment funds. Each college investment team submitted its portfolio account statements along with asset holdings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first time SPIFFY has won this challenging competition and so it is a very significant success,\u201d says Sebastian Lobe, MBS associate professor of finance and SPIFFY co-adviser, who accompanied 14 student members to this year\u2019s GAME forum.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince portfolio performance is measured by evaluating the monthly returns during the calendar year 2017, the award pays homage to SPIFFY members from the last academic year as well as from the current year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Co-president and finance major John Laperle \u201919 says the award \u201cdemonstrates how SPIFFY is in the top tier of student managed portfolios.\u201d<\/p>\n
SPIFFY (Student Portfolio Investment Fund) is one of the most visible groups on campus. It is entirely student-run and oversees nearly $3 million for the University of Maine Foundation. The club was established in 1993 with a donation of $200,000. With more than 50 undergraduate members from a variety of disciplines, SPIFFY meets weekly to discuss changes to its portfolio.<\/p>\n
The club\u2019s big moment came during the awards ceremony on March 23 when SPIFFY\u2019s win for the category of \u201cvalue portfolio\u201d was the first to be announced, Lobe says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat a joyful surprise and what wonderful timing since SPIFFY celebrates its 25th anniversary this September,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Lobe credits SPIFFY\u2019s victory with a new, stronger focus on value investing \u2013 buying stocks at sale prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cChanging our strategy was a dynamic process with lots of discussion as you can imagine,\u201d he says. \u201cThe 2017 SPIFFY portfolio has clearly beaten the S&P 500 Value Index on a risk-adjusted basis. We ended up outperforming the value benchmark with higher returns and lower risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very proud of SPIFFY\u2019s win,\u201d says finance major Dale Hartt \u201919, who came away from the financial conference with valuable information about portfolio growth strategies.<\/p>\n
Former MBS finance professor and SPIFFY founder Bob Strong, who led trips to the GAME forum each year from 2000 until his retirement in 2015, says he \u201calways enjoyed seeing UMaine students rub shoulders with participants from much larger schools and proudly point out that the
\nSPIFFY funds were considerably larger than theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n
He is not surprised by the recent win.<\/p>\n
\u201cFund performance over the past 18 months has been excellent,\u201d he says. \u201cFor the trailing 12 months ending in February, SPIFFY advanced 18.5%, which outperformed a 70% S&P\/30% bond mix by a remarkable 650 basis points. In the investment world that doesn\u2019t happen very often.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Lobe is already thinking about next year\u2019s GAME forum. \u201cThe calendar year 2018 returns will determine our rank,\u201d he says. \u201cThe logic on Wall Street is straightforward. If you do not deliver superior returns as a fund manager, you lose your customers and then your job. Seen in this light, SPIFFY delivers students a great educational and real-life opportunity.\u201d n<\/p>\n
Also serving as SPIFFY co-adviser is finance and accounting lecturer Matt Skaves.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SPIFFY, the Maine Business School\u2019s student investment club, has won first-place in a rigorous, worldwide portfolio competition. The competition was part of the Quinnipiac Global Asset Management Education (GAME) VIII forum March 22\u201324 in New York City, in which 1,500 students from more than 160 colleges and universities around the globe had the opportunity to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":583,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"2","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","spc_primary_category":0},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events"],"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","archive_9_5":"","portrait_3x4":"","image_16_9":"","image_15_7":"","image_25_7":"","3col-image_16_9":"","3col-image_15_7":"","3col-image_full":"","4col-image_16_9":"","4col-image_15_7":"","4col-image_full":"","6col-image_16_9":"","6col-image_15_7":"","6col-image_full":"","8col-image_16_9":"","8col-image_15_7":"","8col-image_full":"","9col-image_16_9":"","9col-image_15_7":"","9col-image_full":"","12col-image_16_9":"","12col-image_15_7":"","12col-image_full":"","post-thumbnail":"","gform-image-choice-sm":"","gform-image-choice-md":"","gform-image-choice-lg":"","umaps-featured-image":"","umaps-icon-size":""},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":" SPIFFY, the Maine Business School\u2019s student investment club, has won first-place in a rigorous, worldwide portfolio competition. The competition was part of the Quinnipiac Global Asset Management Education (GAME) VIII forum March 22\u201324 in New York City, in which 1,500 students from more than 160 colleges and universities around the globe had the opportunity to interact with industry leaders and learn best practices in investment strategy. An important feature of the annual event is the portfolio competition, which compares the performance of student managed investment funds. Each college investment team submitted its portfolio account statements along with asset holdings. \u201cThis…<\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"Events<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"Corey Watson","url":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/blog\/author\/cwatson\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":2,"label":"Events"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Corey Watson","author_link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/blog\/author\/cwatson\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":2,"name":"Events","slug":"events","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":2,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":26,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":2,"category_count":26,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Events","category_nicename":"events","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/583"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9921"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22739,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9921\/revisions\/22739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}