The Hawk Capital Student-Managed Fund (SMIF) was up 36.4 percent in 2019, outperforming its benchmark, the S&P 500 Index, by 5.1 percent. At the end of the year, Hawk Capital had positions in nineteen equity securities and one exchange-traded fund, ranging from 11 to 2 percent of the portfolio. Significant holdings in Apple, Microsoft, Google, Intel, and Disney were major contributors to the stellar performance.
The LHBS SMIF is run as a finance course, Hawk Capital (BF 452). Managing an equity portfolio of some $300,000 provides students with real-world security analysis and portfolio management experience. They analyze industries in technology, finance, energy, communications, consumer cyclicals and non-durables, and healthcare and are assigned a diversity of roles, learning state-of-the art techniques in security valuation, portfolio and risk management, and optimization while replicating the real-time, hands-on environment of a professional “buy side” investment firm.
