Research Challenge

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CFA Institute Research Challenge

The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition that connects university students with investment professionals from within the CFA Society® network. The competition provides students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis and ethics and tests participants' analytical, valuation, reporting writing, and presentation skills.

Members of our society, along with a faculty advisor and an industry mentor, work with teams of students to value a stock, write a research report, and present their recommendations. Teams then compete with peers from other schools at local-level competitions organized and judged by CFA Society members and volunteers. The winning university team(s) from each local competition then advances to see who will become the sub-regional, regional, and global champions. 

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CFA Institute Research Challenge in the Desert US

CFA Society Phoenix, in partnership with the New Mexico, Tucson and Nevada CFA Societies, is hosting this year's CFA Institute Research Challenge for the Desert US Region. The universities have each assembled a team of business and finance students who have researched and prepared an equity analyst report of Offerpad. The University teams will have their presentations evaluated by a panel of investment and finance professionals on March 1st. 

The Research Challenge gathers students, investment industry professionals, and publicly traded companies together locally, regionally, and globally for a real-world competition. in order to promote best practices in equity research and company analysis, the student teams research, analyze, and report on a company as if they were practicing analysts. Additionally, all participants are introduced to and held to the standard of CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct. 

The Dessert Classic Research Challenge champions will advance to compete in the Americas Regional competition on April 13th and 14th, 2023. The Americas Regional winner will then advance to the Global Final on May 3, 2023

Participating Universities

Arizona State University

W. P. Carey School of Business

New Mexico State University 

College of Business

Northern Arizona University 

W.A. Franke College of Business

University of Arizona

The Eller College of Management

University of Nevada Las Vegas 

Lee Business School

University of New Mexico

Anderson School of Management

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