Hedge Funds and Private Equity
When I registered for this course, I had very little idea as to what a hedge fund is. I knew that they involved investment bankers making rich people even richer. I also knew that these bankers earned a small fortune for their work and were often in legal trouble. After taking this course, I still have a hard time to define 'hedge fund.' This isn't because I didn't learn anything or struggled significantly in the course, it's because there really is no true definition for a hedge fund. As a result of this ambiguity, I found the course to be incredibly interesting. I learned about numerous investing strategies and heard from very experienced and interesting guest speakers. Topics covered included trading strategies such as pairs trading, earnings quality, and distressed investing.
My favorite takeaway from the class was hearing from Jason Stoffer, a partner from the local venture capital firm, Maveron. Stoffer discussed his work at the firm and it essentially sounded like was a shark on Shark Tank. In Stoffer's line of work, he hears pitches from entrepreneurs and decides if the firm should fund the young companies. Although this work is very risky and hard to break into, I hope to one day work in venture capital. It would be incredibly interesting and rewarding to turn business dreams into reality.
I have attached two case write ups from the course below. The first involved tracking stocks of various companies over a given period of time. In this case I realized that if I had successfully convinced my parents to invest in Apple back in 2004, I could have made them incredibly rich. However, in reality, I only managed to convince my dad to purchase an iMac computer. The second case involved the pairs trading strategy. I turned out to be much less successful with pairs trading. Although the workbooks (not included) are somewhat complex, they helped me to realize how difficult it is to be a successful financial manager.
My favorite takeaway from the class was hearing from Jason Stoffer, a partner from the local venture capital firm, Maveron. Stoffer discussed his work at the firm and it essentially sounded like was a shark on Shark Tank. In Stoffer's line of work, he hears pitches from entrepreneurs and decides if the firm should fund the young companies. Although this work is very risky and hard to break into, I hope to one day work in venture capital. It would be incredibly interesting and rewarding to turn business dreams into reality.
I have attached two case write ups from the course below. The first involved tracking stocks of various companies over a given period of time. In this case I realized that if I had successfully convinced my parents to invest in Apple back in 2004, I could have made them incredibly rich. However, in reality, I only managed to convince my dad to purchase an iMac computer. The second case involved the pairs trading strategy. I turned out to be much less successful with pairs trading. Although the workbooks (not included) are somewhat complex, they helped me to realize how difficult it is to be a successful financial manager.