A&F Investments reaches the top

The Investments committee of Asset | Accounting & Finance provides its members experience in the field of active management. During their participation, students expand their knowledge of investing and get acquired with portfolio management. In this article you can read what happened in March.

For the first time, the A&F Investments portfolio holds leveraged products. After a pitch about a pair-trade, the committee agreed to take a long position and a short position from two different companies. Compared to past quarters, more stocks were purchased. This was due to the targets and stop-losses, in combination with the volatility of the market. Therefore, eight positions were closed within a month. From two of those, the stocks were repurchased and the majority of the new positions provided us positive returns.

One day the committee will not easily forget, is Friday, March 4^th. A position related to oil, soared more than 140% that day. Of course, nobody could have predicted this and the team had decided before not to set a target for this stock, because it is known as a very volatile stock. Our policy concerning voting does not allow us to anticipate directly to such occasions. Hence, we held the position. Despite the logically decline of the stock, it still was very profitable for us the past months, thanks to the increased oil price.

During the last meeting of the quarter we had a guestlecture, provided by Rembrandt Fusies & Overnames. A partner of them visited us and after an introduction about their business, he held a valuation quiz. The whole committee was involved, our knowledge about valuation methods was tested and the discussions were very open and substantive.