By Elias Kott, Contributing Writer
In SIMM (Students in Money Management), the biggest events that occurred this week included two pitches, one which was in recommendeing buying of a stock and another recommending selling a current holding. The first pitch done by the consumer discretionary sector was a proposal to add the stock JD.com, which trades under the ticker (JD) into SIMM’s investment portfolio. JD.com is a Chinese E-commerce company that is headquartered in Beijing. This company is China’s version of Amazon. Similarly to Amazon, JD.com’s revenue comes from online sales and its biggest competition is another Chinese online retailing company called Alibaba. The majority of the class voted in favor of adding JD into the investment portfolio, so JD should officially become a part of SIMM’S holdings within the next few days.
The second big pitch presented to the class that occurred this past Wednesday involved the ETF, SPDR Bloomberg Barclays Investment Grade Floating Rate, which trades under the ticker (FLRN). This ETF is essentially an index of US dollar-denominated notes that trades in exchanges the same way other stocks do. The return of investment of an ETF like this is modest, which is why the Financials and Fixed Income sector made a compelling pitch to sell this ETF. Another large reason for wanting to sell this ETF is because they would rather allocate FLRN’s cash towards a stock that potentially generates a much higher return on investment. For example, the presenters proposed that they may look into using this money to pitch the investment of a stock that focuses on Financial Technology. The result of this pitch was that the majority of the class voted in favor to sell FLRN, so this should open up more cash for a potentially more lucrative stock investment in the near future.
In addition, a Western New York Index that was recently established and tracks 28 of Western New York’s largest publicly traded companies got officially approved by the Board of Advisors. With the launching of the Western NY Stock Index, the next steps include creating a webpage on the current SIMM website. In addition, there is hope to publicly advertise the Index, whether via media companies, news outlets or news networks.
In market-related news, major US indexes, which include the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq continue to perform at record highs. As of 2/12/20, the Dow Jones sits at 29,551.42, S&P at 3,379.45 and Nasdaq at 9,725.96, respectively. It’s worth noting that the spread of the coronavirus has slowed down for a second consecutive day which may have contributed to markets responding so positively. However, the most recent number of coronavirus cases has increased to about 45,000 worldwide as well as the latest death poll pushing past 1,100.
To learn more or to stay up to date with other SIMM related news go check out the website at https://www.sbusimm.org/ or follow us on twitter at BonaSIMM.
kottej18@bonaventure.edu
