Making Real-Life Financial Investments
February 6, 2025
Natalie Null, '24, former SMIF student manager
“I did an internship in financial planning and analysis and realized it wasn’t for me,” she said. “Then I joined SMIF and found something I could see myself doing long term.”
For select business students like Null, SMIF is an opportunity to gain real-time experience in securities analysis and portfolio management by deciding how to invest $1.2 million from UR’s own endowment.
The fund is open to senior finance majors as a capstone course. The student managers take a series of investment track courses and learn to evaluate a company and what to look for when investing. They are split into two fund teams: one focused on growth-oriented investments, the other on value funds that are on discount. The teams meet weekly to review their portfolio’s performance and pitch new investments.
“It’s one of few student-managed funds in the country,” said SMIF’s faculty advisor Dr. John Earl, associate professor of finance and chair of the finance department. “The managers have rules to abide by, but they make all their own decisions. It gives them real-world experience and a competitive advantage in the job market.”
Null, who served as head of the value fund, worked closely with Earl through SMIF and as a student in his class. “I absorbed so much information because we could directly apply our classroom learning to what we were doing with the fund,” she said.
Financial support from Spider alumni and parents has been vital to the program's success since it was created in 1993. In addition, the fund is advised by a group of investment professionals, many of whom are former student managers. Each fall, SMIF students travel to New York City to visit investment firms and network with SMIF alumni.
“They have this huge network that stretches more than 30 years,” Earl said. “They all help each other out; it’s very special.”