Foundation News

PLATTEVILLE- At the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, the Pioneer Investment Club gives UWP students a chance to further their financial knowledge through hands-on investment experience. The club allows the students to invest nearly $200,000 of UW-Platteville Foundation's money into stocks of their choice to gain a broad knowledge of the stock market and how it functions.

"The club is a great opportunity for students who are interested in investing and motivated to learn more about it," said John Hammermeister, UWP assistant professor of accounting and supervisor for the Pioneer Investment Club.

The club employs a hands-on technique for students to learn their way around the stock market. In order for the club to buy a stock, a member must choose and investigate a potential stock for purchase. He or she must then put together a presentation to give to the club, and the members take a majority vote to buy or reject. New members are allowed to pool their votes together to make one vote that counts in the official poll, but are not allowed to vote individually until they present a stock on their own.

"The club is great because it allows interested students to spend real money and interact with the stock market," said Drew DiVall, an UWP senior business finance and accounting major and vice-president of the Pioneer Investment Club. "It also lets us bounce ideas off each other and learn different strategies from each other, something we wouldn't be able to experience investigating the stock market on our own."

The Pioneer Investment Club invests funds entrusted to them by the UWP Foundation. The funds were entrusted to the club in late 2001, when the UWP Foundation Board made the decision to allow the students to manage a portion of the endowment in accordance with the Foundation Investment Guidelines. The original amount of the endowment was $150,000, but over the years, the number has grown to the $200,000 the club manages today. Club members are required to give annual presentations to the UWP Foundation Board in order for the board to receive feedback and monitor the process of the students' investments.

"The club provides an educational experience for the students and gives them real-life experience on managing and trading funds," said Kim Govier, UWP Foundation accounts receivable and scholarship coordinator. "The students are a step ahead because they already have actual experience managing funds when they leave school."

Members of the Pioneer Investment Club are also given opportunities to attend conferences to enhance their knowledge of investments. This March, five members of the club were given the opportunity to attend the Redefining Investment Strategy Education global student investment forum at the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio. The conference is a three-day forum where students, faculty and investment professionals meet in an interactive learning environment designed to educate participants about investing. During the forum, members of the Pioneer Investment Club listened to keynote presentations given by internationally renowned industry leaders and attended specialized workshops and career strategies forums.

"I really enjoyed the conference because I was a able to hear firsthand what Wall Street professionals and other prominent businesspeople had to say about the current state of the economy," said Megan Yager, a UWP junior accounting and business finance major and secretary for the UWP Pioneer Investment Club. "I was also able to attend breakout sessions of my choice and learn about things that I am really interested in."

Last spring, members of the club also attended the Chicago Board Options Exchange in Chicago, the official trading floor for trading options. The group attended an educational seminar about the mechanics of options, strategies and costs of options and how to buy and sell them of E-trade. Next, the group participated in a trading simulation on the CBOE floor with real options traders. They learned the hand signals and vocabulary that traders use and even bought and sold options with real options traders.

"The CBOE trip gave the club members the opportunity to see and feel what it is really like to trade derivatives by bartering with real traders," said DiVall. "Through the club, we aren't really exposed to options, and this seminar was a really great way for the members to gain experience in a part of investments that we don't really cover in the club."

"The Investment Club really benefits students because it makes them much more aware of the business world," said Yager, who has been involved in the club since she was a freshman. "I have learned a lot about investing and the economy, and I have used what I've learned in many of my classes."

The club meets every Tuesday from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. in Room 108 of Ullsvik Hall on the UWP campus. For more information about the Pioneer Investment Club, contact Hammermeister at (608) 342-1463 or hammermeistj@uwplatt.edu.

Labels: foundation, fund, scholarship