By: Steve Zimmer Staff Writer Trading Activity Buy Alcoa Inc. (AA) Alcoa Inc. produces and manages primary aluminum, fabricated aluminum and alumina. The company operates in four segments: alumina, primary metals, global rolled products and engineered products and solutions. Alcoa supplies aluminum to eight major markets, including the automotive, aerospace, construction, oil, commercial transportation, defense,…
By Steve Zimmer Staff Writer Summer Portfolio Monitoring In order to hedge our equity positions over the summer, students were tasked with placing stop-losses on their sector holdings. A stop-loss is an order to sell a stock if it hits a certain price. It’s designed to limit an investor’s loss on a position. Since the…
By: Steve Zimmer Contributing Writer Club Activity Over the past two weeks, members of SIMM have been working to prepare SIMM’s semi-annual report. Reports for both the Equity and Energy Fund are distributed to our advisory board, alumni and any other interested party. The reports for the Equity and Energy Fund highlight fund performance compared…
By Steve Zimmer Staff Writer Personal Finance 101: What is a 401(k)? As many Bonaventure seniors and graduate students begin to look for and find jobs, it is important to understand that a salary is only one aspect of the total job offer. When offered a first job, the recent hire receives a compensation…
By: Dan Milgate Contributing Writer Equity Fund: $252,878 Energy Fund: $241,100 NYC Trip Recap From Sunday, Oct. 26 to Tuesday, Oct. 28, 21 students and faculty went to New York City for our annual SIMM/Finance Club trip. We met with a variety of banks and financial services companies including UBS, CIT Group, Bank of…
By Jamie Sperrazzo Contributing Writer Finance 101: The Importance of a Diversified Portfolio One of the most important factors of investing is building a diversified portfolio. If you put all of your money into one stock, you are taking on a higher risk. What this means is that if you are invested in only…
By Mark Lawhead Contributing Writer Market Summary Overall, the markets took a dive over the past week as international turmoil took the headlines and forced money managers on Wall Street to find alternative investments. Oil and gas prices remain low amidst the turmoil, as tension with Russia remains at the forefront of the global markets.…
By Maxwell Scardetta Contributing Writer Investing 101: Mutual Funds Mutual funds are a great way to invest without having to do a lot of the work yourself. A mutual fund is a company that pools money from many investors and invests the money in securities such as stocks, bonds and short-term debt. The entirety of…
By Sean Corey Staff Writer U.S. stock markets have been rising nearly every day for the past week. The S&P 500, an index of 500 stocks from large companies, reached a record high on Wednesday closing at 1,890.90. The SIMM long fund had its best week of the year, and only two of…
By Sean Corey Staff Writer Stock prices can plummet in the time it takes to walk to the water fountain and back. Since we can’t continuously monitor our portfolio, we like to be protected from large and unexpected price decreases. To do this we put a stop-loss on most of our stocks.…
By Sean Corey Staff Writer New Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen hinted that the Fed may end its bond buying program, quantitative easing, on Wednesday. Currently the Fed buys around $60 billion dollars worth of bonds each month from various banks. This lowers interest rates and increases lending to businesses and other borrowers, thus providing a…
By Sean Corey Staff Writer According to CNN, the average student loan debt reached $29,400 per student in 2012, up from $18,750 in 2004. Student loan debt is quickly becoming a problem for our generation. Many recent graduates have trouble managing and paying their loans. If you have student loans, it can be a…
By Sean Corey Staff Writer Let’s say you believe a company will have poor earnings and their stock price will decrease. Rather than simply not buying the stock, you can make money off the stock’s decline by shorting the stock. When you short a stock, your bank will lend you a number of shares of…
By Sean Corey Contributing Writer Stocks are simply ownership shares in a company. If you own a stock of a company you are part owner of that company. Being an stockholder entitles you to the financial profits of the company and gives you a vote in the corporate governance of the company. If the financial…
By Sean Corey Contributing Writer Students in Money Management (SIMM) is St. Bonaventure’s stock market club located in the Dee Family Financial Services Lab of the William E. and Ann L. Swan Business Center. Students from several majors meet every Monday and Wednesday to discuss the markets, economic news and, most importantly, decide which stocks…