Research Challenge

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. 

Learn more and read FAQs See the schedule and get involved

North Texas Research Challenge

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South Texas Research Challenge

Overview

History of the IRC: In 2006, the CFA Society of Dallas/Fort Worth and the CFA Society of Houston teamed up to launch an exciting new initiative, the Investment Research Challenge-Texas.  In the initial year of the Challenge, student teams from Rice, Texas A&M, TCU and SMU competed with each other on analyzing, writing, and presenting a report recommending a “Buy”, “Sell”, or “Hold” position on a publicly traded company.  The societies assisted in providing education tools; the goal being to provide a value-added real-world application for these students.  The teams were then assigned the company (i.e. the target company) to analyze with access to the CEO and CFO. Teams were given a template follow in completing their written analysis/report.  All four Texas societies, Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio provided mentors for the teams, judges or graders. Finalist teams competed before an oral panel made up of leaders in our investment community at the Texas Investment Portfolio Symposium (TIPS).  The winning team went on to compete regionally against other winners hosted by CFA Institute in New York City.

From its beginnings sixteen years ago, the Challenge now involves more than 6,000+ students from over 1,200 of the world’s top universities.  Over 160 societies participate utilizing thousands of dedicated volunteers.  IN BOTH OUR NORTH TEXAS AND OUR SOUTH TEXAS RESEARCH CHALLENGES WE RELY ON OVER 100 DEDICATED VOLUNTEERS!  

Timeline 

Both the Research Challenges open in September of the Academic Year and runs through late February where a winner is chosen to compete against other local winners of Challenges throughout the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa plus Asia Pacific.   DEADLINE FOR TEAMS TO SIGN UP IS DECEMBER 15, 2025.  COMPANY TO ANALYZE will be announced soon.  

For a complete timeline, official rules, and the 2025 results, please click HERE

A HUGE THANKS TO ALL THE HOUSTON VOLUNTEERS IN THIS YEAR'S CHALLENGE, NATALIE KASSENYEVA, PAT SWANSON, LEE PARTRIDGE, VICTORIA FERNANDEZ, MATT CAIRE, DAVID DUPRE. 

To join the Research Challenge or for more information, contact us at: 

[email protected]

Questions 

Student FAQs

University FAQs

Employer FAQs

Rice University Team 

This year, the Rice University team consisted entirely of Freshman women from various areas of China. It was the only all-female, all-freshman team we have ever had.