Students gain experience in securities analysis and portfolio management through the Daniels Marsico Investment Center
The Marsico Investment Center houses classes where students manage real portfolios.
You wouldn’t think that a 94-year-old would preach patience. Yet, that’s what Warren Buffett keeps doing. Take this Buffett view on investing:
“Successful investing takes time, discipline and patience. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time.”
Jasmine Passanante and Libby Herzog are learning about patient and disciplined investing by managing a small portion of the University of Denver endowment fund, an opportunity made available to them through a $500,000 contribution Tom Marsico (MBA 1979, Hon. PhD 2007) and his wife, Cydney, made in 1999. Tom Marsico is chief executive officer, president and chief investment officer of Marsico Capital Management, which he founded in 1997 in Denver.
Passanante and her classmates managed $624,000 in the Reiman Fund class, which allows undergraduate students to guide a stock portfolio benchmarked against the S&P MidCap 400 Index. Herzog and her graduate classmates manage $2.8 million in the Marsico Fund class, which targets the S&P 500 Index.
Students gain experience in securities analysis and portfolio management. They conduct their analyses using industry-leading financial databases, such as Bloomberg Terminal and S&P Capital IQ, provided through the Marsico Investment Center at Daniels, which was created through the Marsicos’ contribution.
Students also have access to Bloomberg and S&P certification courses to enhance their technical expertise and employment/internship qualifications.
“The Marsicos’ vision was providing students with an applied experience where they could actively manage a portion of the DU endowment,” said Chris Hughen, an associate professor of finance who teaches the Marsico Fund class.
These classes are among the best learning opportunities I’ve had in college. I’ve been able to apply the knowledge that I’ve gained throughout my studies, and it’s been a big learning curve. I’m so glad for it because it has completely changed the trajectory of the career I might have in the future.
“The strong performance of the funds, including a 101% return over five years for the Marsico Fund, demonstrates the success of the hands-on approach they envisioned.”
Conrad Ciccotello, director of the Reiman School, and assistant teaching professor Michael Jacobs lead the Reiman Fund class, which has also had investing success.
“The Reiman Fund gives students a hands-on opportunity to manage a portfolio of mid-cap stocks. Students vote on all buys and sells in the portfolio,” Ciccotello said. “Over the past year, the Reiman portfolio has outperformed its benchmark index by about 4%, making it one of the best mid-cap fund performers in the country.”
The Reiman Fund gives students a hands-on opportunity to manage a portfolio of mid-cap stocks. Students vote on all buys and sells in the portfolio. Over the past year, the Reiman portfolio has outperformed its benchmark index by about 4%, making it one of the best mid-cap fund performers in the country.
Getting Students’ Hands Dirty
Hughen says that learning investing at Daniels is not just about theory, but allowing students to get their hands dirty by putting their ideas in action.
“With our approach, we begin by identifying the stage of the current business cycle and concentrate on sectors that do well associated with that.” Hughen said. “Recently, we’ve had good success with AI stocks.
“One local company is Palantir, which develops software for the defense sector. We currently have a 1,500% return.” Hughen added. “We’ve also performed well with Nvidia, a leading computer chip manufacturer that has seen enormous growth due to the demand for data centers running AI applications. Our students successfully overweighted that and we currently have a 415% return.”
The Investing Experience
Jasmine Passanante took the Reiman Fund class for two quarters, based on strong recommendations from other students about its non-traditional, student-led approach. Passanante is now working on her master’s degree in accounting, and plans to graduate in November.
“It’s hard to call it a class in the traditional sense,” Passanante said. “It’s set up to be controlled by students and isn’t based on textbook material. Each student takes responsibility for certain positions in the portfolio. Our job is to update the rest of the class on how our companies are doing—recent news, do we think we should continue to hold our positions. The other part of the class involves individual research and making recommendations for the portfolio—looking for buys or deciding what we wanted to sell.
“Our professors were very hands-off; all decisions were left to the students,” Passanante added. “They shared their feedback on our stock pitches, which were based on analyst recommendations and current trends rather than financial analysis. But they entrusted all the funds and decision-making to us, which made it such a fantastic experience.”
Libby Herzog is also a two-quarter veteran of the Reiman Fund class and is currently in the Marsico Fund class as part of her accounting master’s degree, which she plans to complete in June.
“Rather than depending on outside analyst recommendations, Professor Hughen puts us in the position of being the analyst,” Herzog said. “He wants us to create a target price based on our financial analysis, which could be a free cash flow model, a relative valuation or a discounted cash flow model. He doesn’t care what other analysts are saying. We do the analysis and reach our own conclusions.
“These classes are among the best learning opportunities I’ve had in college,” Herzog added. “I’ve been able to apply the knowledge that I’ve gained throughout my studies, and it’s been a big learning curve. I’m so glad for it because it has completely changed the trajectory of the career I might have in the future.”