Ilitch School portfolio management class outperforms S&P 500 in 2022

Despite the highly volatile and challenging stock market of 2022, finance students at the Mike Ilitch School of Business achieved excellent relative investment returns in the Student-Managed Investment Fund (SMIF), a $2 million fund established by the Kresge Foundation's investment office in 2018. The SMIF outperformed the S&P 500, which is a stock market index tracking the performance of 500 large companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges, by 641 basis points.

Students in the Ilitch School's portfolio management course (FIN 5220/7990) are responsible for maintaining the SMIF under the direction of Julie Hollinshead, CFA, part-time faculty in finance and president of Hollinshead Advisory Services.

"This course gives our students a unique platform to manage $2 million and to develop marketable skills for assessing companies and investment opportunities," said Hollinshead.

The course was created in 2015 with seed funding from Fifth Third Bank and gives students real-world experience managing money while learning from the challenging course curriculum and using state-of-the-art tools in the school's finance and data analytics lab.

During the semester, students utilize Bloomberg terminals and other investment skills developed in the course to formulate buy, sell and hold recommendations for Kresge based on the performance of their selected stocks. The class receives support from the Kresge Foundation and an advisory board comprised of highly experienced investment managers.

Kresge investment team members, advisory board members and local investment executives are frequent guest lecturers in the class. Lecturers share their personal experiences in the asset management profession, allowing students to learn about different types of job opportunities in corporations, investment firms, foundations and the public sector.

The SMIF returned -11.65% relative to the S&P 500's return of -18.10% for the calendar year 2022.