Texas State Teams Wins First Place at CFA Institute Research Challenge

The CFA Institute Research Challenge is a competition between university-sponsored teams that research a designated publicly traded company, prepare a written report on that selected company, and then present their findings to a panel of judges. The competition has four levels: local, sub-regional, regional, and global. Winners at the local level advance to compete against teams within their geographic region at the sub-regional level. Winning teams at the sub-regional level advance to compete at the regional level. Winning teams at the regional level advance to compete at the global level. One team is designated the ultimate winning team, or champion, at the global level. 
The Texas State team won first place in the local competition on Saturday, February 27, 2021.  Team members are:

• Dylan Amesur (graduated in finance December 2020 and working at PIMCO, SMIF alumnus)
• Carson Kennedy (MSQFE student)
• Patrick Kline (MSQFE Student, May 2020 economics grad)
• Jorge Leyva (finance major expected to graduate May 2021, current SMIF student)
• Michael Sassin (finance major expected to graduate May 2021, current SMIF student)

This year, only 16 teams competed in the preliminary round due to the pandemic; in most years there are 24 competitors.  Eight teams were selected as finalists based on their written report: (in no particular order) Rice, Baylor, West Texas A&M, Texas A&M, Nicholls State, University of Houston, Loyola University NO, and Texas State.  As a result of the reduced number, the local competition will send only one team forward to the sub-regional competition, which is a new addition to the Challenge this year.  Our sub-regional consists of teams from 5 local competitions.  Two winners will be selected based on a re-judged written report and pre-recorded presentation.  While all other levels include a Q&A period, the sub-regional level does not.  The winners of the sub-regional competitions will be announced by the end of March, and will advance to the Regional competitions in April, whose winners will advance to the Global competition April 22.  All levels of competition after the sub-regionals will be conducted via Zoom and will be judged on presentation and Q&A alone.