With immense pride, the CFA Society New York is pleased to announce that Seton Hall University finished with a top mark at the 2016-17 CFA Research Challenge Americas Competition, securing one of four spots at the Global Finals which are set to take place in Prague on April 28th. They will be joined by the other Americas winner—from the Dominican Republic—Barna Business School.

Seton Hall started the competition in October 2016 alongside 22 local participating teams with the kick-off presentation. There, Dominion Resources was announced as the subject company. For the next couple of months each team researched Dominion for the purpose of writing a sell-side equity research report and prepared for a presentation in front of a panel of judges. Seton Hall University was picked as the top team from CFANY. This paved the way for advancement to the first round in the America’s Regionals which took place on Friday April 7 in Seattle, Washington.

A total of 53 teams from across CFA Societies in the Americas participated. Seton Hall competed against six teams, randomly selected in the first round, including the home team from host-Society Seattle University. Seton Hall’s presentation was confidently delivered with all team members displaying their complimentary respective strengths, particularly during the difficult Q&A led by the three-judge panel. Each team member knew when and what to add to one other’s answer, providing an impressive overall performance. The caliber of the competition was very high, making the crowning of a winner a tall task. In addition, the written research report in the first round was accounted for in the overall score, making it more difficult to know where each team stood.

After a nerve-racking lunch, Brian Stype, Director of the CFA Research Challenge, announced the winners from all the various groups in the two tracks. Seton Hall was pronounced the winner of their group and had a moment to celebrate before preparing for the final round later that day. Seton Hall’s next step was to compete against another group of winners from their respective group: University of Waterloo (last year’s global winners), Brazil’s Insper Instituto, Chapman University from Orange County, and the University of Denver. With a new set of judges and fresh set of questions, the final presentation was on a stage in front of hundreds of spectators watching it unfold live, as well as potentially thousands of online viewers.

Seton Hall presented third and once again did a fantastic job presenting the investment case for subject company Dominion Resources. They proved undaunted and unflappable despite any curve ball questions thrown at them. Each team had a different subject company, and it was clear that each one had prepared for the opportunity to move to the next round. Please take a moment to watch to these students’ stellar presentation: https://livestream.com/accounts/650767/RC17-AMER/videos/153644640.

While the judges deliberated on crowning a winner of the Americas competition, all the participants took the opportunity to network and talk about their experience. The announcement was made by John L. Bowman, CFA Managing Director Americas of CFA Institute, that Seton Hall and Barna would be the two schools representing the Americas in this year’s Global Finals, set to occur in Prague on April 28th. CFANY is proud to continue its support of the CFA Research Challenge and wishes Seton Hall all the best at the next stage of the competition. We recognize that an immeasurable amount of work goes into producing the competition and appreciate all the volunteers for their help along the way. If you would like to learn more about the competition and potentially be a part of it, please contact Mario E. Carias, CFA mcarias@nyssa.org with any questions.

Finally, a sincere thank you to our local sponsor, Kaplan Schweser