A team of Farmer School students won the Cleveland Research Company Intercollegiate Stock Pitch Competition, held at the Farmer School of Business last week.

The competition provides an opportunity for students to demonstrate their investment ideas and knowledge of the financial markets. Each team of 2-4 students assembled a slide deck to pitch a long or short equity position with a 3-12 month horizon.

33 teams from 16 universities submitted first-round pitches, and the top eight teams advanced to the in-person finals. Friday morning was spent attending an investment symposium before the final presentations were made.

Finalists made a 10-minute in-person presentation of their analysis followed by a 10-minute question and answer session. Presentations were judged on the quality of the investment pick and rationale, the quality of the presentation, and the ability to field questions.

The team of Robert Nahigian, Mickey Fanella, and Nick Mack took first place, while teams from the University of Dayton and the University of Texas came in second and third, respectively.

“CRC Stock Pitch Competition is an awesome opportunity to discuss your ideas with professionals in the industry. As a student it’s tough to know whether you’re thinking the right things or focusing on the important factors. Thanks to CRC, we are able to learn from the experts and expand our network in the meantime,” Mack, a senior finance major, said. “I was lucky to have an outstanding team that put countless hours into researching Adobe.”

“CRC allowed my team and I to go beyond a traditional classroom setting and pitch to a group of experienced judges,” senior finance and accountancy major Fanella said. “We’d like to thank the whole CRC team for their commitment to student success and their insights throughout the weekend. I definitely walked away with advice I can carry with me throughout my entire career.”

“It’s a very valuable experience because it’s all very real. We are pitching real ideas to make real money and identifying certain factors that the equity markets are not pricing into a particular stock,” senior finance major Nahigian said. “This year my team and I pitched Adobe and it’s always awesome to learn a ton about a company and an industry and convince professional investors to buy.”