Two USI students win their way to Wall Street

Paolo Montemurro (L) and Davide Brignoli (R), visting Il Litorale
Paolo Montemurro (L) and Davide Brignoli (R), visting Il Litorale
Davide Brignoli (L) and Paolo Montemurro (R)
Davide Brignoli (L) and Paolo Montemurro (R)

Institutional Communication Service

21 May 2019

One of the features of being a university student is to be given the opportunity to put into practice – while studying – the learnings acquired in the classroom. This is the case of a class of students of the USI Master's in Finance who, following a recommendation from the programme director, took part in the ETF Global Portfolio Challenge. Two of them, Paolo Montemurro and Davide Brignoli, distinguished themselves among more than a thousand competitors from 425 institutes from all over the world, placing themselves in sixth and, respectively, fourteenth place – and winning free tickets to the ETF Forum in New York on November 21.

The ETF Global Portfolio Challenge is an individual online competition for university students to build and manage an investment portfolio in Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Designed as a game but with educational purposes, students learn how to invest in listed financial instruments (the so-called Exchange Traded Products). Through the Stockfuse online portal, competitors - who are granted a virtual capital of one hundred thousand dollars - create a portfolio with a minimum of four and a maximum of ten ETFs, selected from thousands available on the market, to be managed over a period of three months and with the possibility to rebalance the portfolio once a week. At the end of the competition, a ranking is drawn up based on the portfolio's performance. In the case of Paolo Montemurro, his investment strategy 'yielded' a return of 21.9%, while that of his fellow classmate Davide Brignoli 17.4%. By way of comparison, if we exclude the two first place winners who have achieved returns of more than 50%, the average of the other top winners is 23.5%.

As for the rewards, Paolo and Davide will get free admittance to the ETP Forum on November 21 in New York, an event that attracts over five hundred participants each year from all over the world. During the Forum, our two students will have the opportunity to network, to present their investment strategies to investment experts, and to evaluate opportunities for internships at financial companies in the area. In addition, they will offered a private and guided visit a stock exchange (NASDAQ, NYSE, or other).

 

About the ETF Global Challenge: https://etfportfoliochallenge.com

About the USI Master's in Finance: www.usi.ch/mfin

 

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