Student Spotlight: Humza Waheed

Humza Waheed, a finance major in the Mike Ilitch School of Business, won first place in the Investopedia Market Madness Investing Challenge.

Investopedia, an online source of trusted financial information and services, provided students with $50,000 in virtual cash and awarded prizes to three winners from U.S. universities based on final portfolio values.

Waheed attributed his success to both his own drive and his experience at Wayne State.

Originally pursuing a career in the medical field, Waheed came to WSU because of its biology department. After two years, he switched his major to finance because he had a passion for financial markets.

“Wayne State also has a very good business school, so I didn’t have to switch schools or anything,” he said. “It was easy just to stay here.”

He said his WSU classes helped him win the challenge, in addition to studying on his own. He also said he made connections that made it possible for him to win.

“There are a lot of outside resources you have to learn,” he said.

Additionally, he said student organizations helped him out, particularly the Financial Management Association.

“The Financial Management Association was a big one that helped me out,” he said. “I started my own student organization called the Wall Street Warriors, co-founded with a couple of people I met from FMA. Our group is specifically geared toward investing and finance.”

In order to win the competition, Waheed utilized a risky strategy, where he shorted microcap equities.

“A lot of the equities, due to a high amount of retail investors applying in them, become very inefficient. I decided to bet against the company and play it on the downside,” he said. “I did one big play on Lululemon right before their earnings call and happened to make a very good call on that. It worked out very well, I made a large amount of profits off that play.”

Waheed plans on investing a portion of his $10,000 in prize money, and putting the rest in savings.

“I plan on using a similar strategy that I used in the competition,” he said.

For fellow students interested in investing and financial markets, Waheed said it’s a full time commitment.

“You really have to look at a lot of outside resources to learn,” he said. “You shouldn’t get involved in markets if you’re not ready to spend your entire lifetime studying that. It’s not something you can do part time; it really has to be your passion. If it is your passion, find every connection that you can.”

Waheed said he is planning on going into the hedge fund industry after graduating in 2018.

“I hope to eventually also create my own hedge fund one day if I become successful at investing.”

 

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