Research Challenge

Screenshot_2023-01-13_at_4_34_50_PM.png

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

Local Research Challenge

The University of Pittsburgh won the CFA Society Pittsburgh 2024/2025 local Investment Research Challenge (IRC). They will now advance to the semi-regional competition.

Student team members Thomas Cardozo, Adam Cohen, Sammy Davis, Riley Franklin and Helen Wu were joined by faculty advisor Dr. Akin Sayrak and industry mentor Steve Garbon.

Penn State Behrend placed second while Penn State University Park took third. Also competing were Robert Morris University, and West Virginia. All five teams who started the competition also completed the competition, which is an impressive feat given the hard work and research required to win the Investment Research Challenge. Student teams competed over the course of six months by researching subject company L.B. Foster by learning about the business from William Thalman (CFO), Sean Reilly (Controller), Lisa Durante, and Stephanie Schmidt (IR), and finally writing a comprehensive investment report accompanied by a live presentation. Four ‘Buy’ recommendations and one ‘Hold’ recommendation were issued by the five teams on L.B. Foster stock.

Friends of the IRC include: 

Faculty advisors: Dr. Akin Sayrak, Dr. Christoph Hinkelmann, Dr. Greg Filbeck, Dr. Sabatino Silveri, and Dr. Riza Emekter

Industry mentor volunteers: Cale Grove, Geoffrey Ensby, Nick Conti, Nick Findley, and Steve Garbon

Report grader volunteers: Dan Eiben, Corey Mergenthal, Ben Mesnick, and Wade Rashilla

Presentation judge volunteers: Shawna Aufman, Eric Fencil, and Mandi Surgeon

If you’d like to participate as a volunteer next year, please let local IRC host Jason Pettner know. If you’re a student-level member of CFASP or a faculty member of a nearby university and would like to get your school involved, contact Jason for more information. Best of luck at sub-regionals, University of Pittsburgh!

~Jason Pettner (2024-2025 Local IRC host)

Innovating to Solve Global Infrastructure Challenges | L.B. FosterLogo for the 2024-2025 IRC subject company

A group of people standing in a room

AI-generated content may be incorrect.University of Pittsburgh won the CFA Society Pittsburgh 2024/2025 local Investment Research Challenge