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LETTER FROM 2024/2025 SPRING SIF MANAGEMENT TEAM
The Herbert B. Mayo Student Investment Fund (SIF) is an actively managed fund by ambitious and highly focused students across different disciplines within the School of Business. The fund is designed to help students interested in portfolio management get hands-on experience, where they are actively making decisions about the school’s money. Some of the skills students gain and are challenged within the fund include market research/analysis, identifying industry and macro-related trends, performing various types of valuation techniques, risk management, working in a team environment, public speaking and many more. By being a part of this rigorous fund enhances the education of the School of Business, further preparing students to utilize real-world skills when they graduate from college. As we end the semester, currently the fund sits at $850,000+ in assets under management, comprising of 45+ tickers in the portfolio. In the beginning of each semester, the fund comes together and establishes goals. Many of the goals change semester to semester such as increasing/decreasing exposure in a specific sector or how much risk should the fund be taking at the given time, while one goal always remains the same, which is to outperform the benchmark (the S&P 500). Furthermore, one of the most prestigious goals of the fund is to ensure there is enough capital allocation to allow for one-time scholarship offerings to incoming TCNJ first-year students from the local Ewing community.
This Spring the fund was tasked with navigating a new political administration and the economic volatility that came with aggressively ambitious trade policy reforms. Notably in the semester was the historic route in markets that came from the unravelment of the tariff policy through “Liberation Day”. As mentioned in our macro-hypothesis, the conjunction of overarching economic recovery concerns with the capricious nature of the administration’s trade policy has led the fund to take more conservative positions than to transition into more aggressive strategies after the correction. Paramount to the economic challenges faced by the fund, the S&P 500’s YTD return as of May 14th is approx 17 bps. Comparing that return to the funds which is 266 bps, we were able to outperform the benchmark.
We would like to thank Dr. Mayo and Dr. Choi for the opportunity to bridge the gap between the classroom and the real world, further enhancing our education and experience within the School of Business. Your guidance throughout the meetings we have held is paramount and will allow us to be successful in our post-college careers.
Drafted by Tyler Rummel, Salvatore Zotti, and Kristen Afacan on behalf of the Spring 2025 SIF Management Team.
