New Hood club gets 100K to invest

Students at Hood College can now play the stock market and directly learn how investing works, due to the implementation of the Blazing Alpha Fund.
The Fund contains $100,000 allotted by the Board of Trustees for use by students pursuing business or accounting majors. All of the money for the Fund was provided by donors. The fund is managed almost entirely by the students themselves, with minimal input from faculty or administrators.
Students in MGMT 370, also known as Investment Practicum, analyze the trends of the market in their weekly class. With some guidance from Prof. Matthew McGreevy, the instructor, they choose the amount to invest and what to invest it in.
Nigol Keurkunian, a student and founding member of the program, said that the Fund was intended “to promote the skills and interest of students, and teach them about the financial industry through real world investments.”
The first investment by students was made near the end of January 2017. Investments are divided by sector and handled by different students. Currently, there are six sectors that students can focus on: energy, industrial, financial, IT (technology), consumer, and healthcare.
The Fund and class were first discussed as possibilities with the construction of the Rosenstock trade room in fall 2015. The Blazer Reinvestment Club, a predecessor to the class, began in spring 2016, just as work began on the Fund.
According to the Fund’s initial report, its end goal is to “become an educational tool for years to come and increase the esteem of the finance program at the college.”