Investment Learning Center
237 Haslam Business Building
Contact Information:
ILC Director: Laura Seery Cole
435 Stokely Management Center
Department of Finance
The University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996
Voice: 865-974-1715
Fax: 865-974-1716
Email: lwallis@utk.edu
The Investment Learning Center (ILC) in the Haslam Business Building was funded entirely through the generosity of private donations. It occupies a very visible, high-profile space in UT's newly renovated business school complex and provides the college with a facility offering real-world market investment experiences through venues such as Bloomberg terminals.
Mission of the Investment Learning Center
The mission of the Investment Learning Center is to enhance learning and to advance financial education by providing cutting-edge experiential learning. The ILC elevates UT's investment and financial education to the next level, and the state-of-the-art facility enhances the quality and depth of investment education for undergraduate, masters and doctoral level students interested in investment decision making and portfolio management.
Bloomberg Certification and Research
With access to two Bloomberg electronic data terminals, the Investment Learning Center facilitates instruction leading to Bloomberg Global Product Certification. UT students can get certified in equity or fixed income tracks. Both students and faculty gain access to real-time and historical information regarding approximately five million financial instruments on the Bloomberg terminals.
Torch Funds
The college's Haslam and LaPorte Torch Fund activities are housed in the Investment Learning Center, giving Torch Fund managers unlimited use of the center's resources. In addition, the Investment Learning Center provides support for the CFA Global Investment Research Challenge and the NYMEX Commodities Challenge. Dr. Deborah Murphy is the faculty advisor, and she can be contacted at dgunthor@utk.edu.
CFA Global Investment Research Challenge
Finance students interact with investment professionals and top firms while getting real-world experience and mentoring. This challenge converges students, investment industry professionals, publicly traded companies, and corporate sponsors together locally, regionally, and globally for a real world competition.
The CFA Society of Louisville hosts this challenge, which includes Louisville, Bellarmine, Indiana University Southeast, and Butler University. The universities assemble teams of five students who work directly with a company to research and prepare a company analysis. The teams’ final presentations are locally evaluated by high-profile panels of heads of research, portfolio managers, and chief investment officers from the world’s top firms. Winners from the local competition then advance to regional competitions in the Americas, Asia, and Europe, and then to the global finale. Dr. Alvaro G. Taboada, CFA is the faculty advisor and he can be contacted at ataboada@utk.edu.
NYMEX Commodities Challenge
This is a two-part competition pitting teams of undergraduate and graduate students from such colleges and universities as Brown, Columbia, George Washington, Penn State, Rice, Syracuse, University of Texas at Austin, and Yale against each other. In the electronic trading phase, each team is allocated a mock $100,000 trading allowance to buy and sell crude oil and natural gas futures contracts. Teams are required to make a minimum of three trades per day using the CQG Trading Platform. After three weeks of trading, the four teams with the top trading account balances advance to a final round and compete for cash prizes and internships.
In the second phase of the competition, individual students train in the techniques of exchange floor “open outcry” trading. After training, they compete in a simulated futures trading session and are judged by NYMEX traders on their ability to fill orders and utilize proper trading techniques. Top traders win cash prizes and internships. Dr. Phillip Daves is the faculty advisor and he can be contacted at pdaves@utk.edu.