HSE Team to Take Part in the CFA Institute Research Challenge in Chicago

The Russian final competition in the CFA Institute Research Challenge 2016 has come to a close in Moscow – identifying the two Russian winners. One was the HSE team – the second year running that the HSE has won the Russian stage of the contest.

The CFA Institute holds the CFA Institute Research Challenge international student contest every year. Participants have to analyze the performance of a selected company and offer their investment analysis recommendations. The competition is a kind of international ‘investment Olympiad’ for students at financial and economics faculties at leading universities worldwide. Over the last 8 years over 15,000 students from more than 1,000 universities across the globe have taken part.

On March 4, the EY Moscow office hosted the final in the Russian stage of the contest, which saw 7 teams compete. The two winning teams included one team from the HSE (comprising Vyacheslav Kabaev, 2^nd year MA ICEF student, Sofya Kondratieva, 3^rd year BA ICEF student, Vitaly Pentegov, 1^st year MA Financial Analyst student at HSE’s Banking Institute, Vladimir Seleznyov, 1^st year MA Strategic Corporate Finance student, and captained by Sergei Stepanov, 2^nd year MA Strategic Corporate Finance student). The team was trained by teachers from the HSE’s Banking Institute.

Contestants had to prepare investment reports and a 10-minute video presentation for the jury. ‘Including the question and answer session, we spent around 40 minutes defending our investment research,’ the HSE team said. ‘The judges of the Russian stage are high qualified financiers. Their questions were often surprising and it was sometimes hard to find an answer. Not only did they score the video-presentation highly, they also gave high marks to our answers.’

In April the winners will head to Chicago (where the international finals will also take place) to represent Russia in the regional championships.