Finance students in the past have participated in national student competitions. They are a great opportunity to practice and further your knowledge and skills you learned in the finance program at PSU. Because not all of you are finance major, grading will be generous as long as you follow the instructions (e.g., number counts for answers). In addition, it’s not a technical assignment. It’s an opportunity to look back and evaluate what you have learned, how they can be useful, and what else you should learn. Remember you chose finance as your major because you like something about finance. Follow your passion and keep learning what excites you, and you will have a bright future ahead of you. This is the last assignment of this course. Thank you for working hard in this course for the past 7 weeks.
Q1 What is the title of the finance student competition you may consider competing? Hint: You may Google search something like “student competitions in finance”.
The CFI Financial Modeling Competition
Q2 Describe the eligibility requirements, if any (e.g., undergraduate college student).
The competition is open to anyone registered as a full-time student in a university or college program.
Q3 What are the competition criteria?
The competition will be evaluated through the following criteria:
Q4 What is the deadline for the submission?
The deadline is 12:01am on Sunday, October 3, 2021
Q5 Why are you interested in this competition?
I am interested in this competition because it could give me a chance to compete against finance professionals and demonstrate my skills. It could be a great opportunity to enhance my professional profile.
Q6 What would be a possible project you may turn in for the competition? Describe it in at least 100 words.
The way that this competition works is that a case is released containing detailed financial information about a company. Then participants are tasked with building a valuation modeling in Excel from scratch, with the information provided, and must arrive at a valuation for the business. Because of the way the competition works, I do not have control over which company to analyze, however it is certain that I would be performing a valuation model. In addition, I would be submitting a pitch book that summarizes all of the data, outputs, and recommendations. I would have one week to build a model, determine a valuation, and present my findings.
Q7 List things that you learned in financial modeling course that could be helpful for your project in Q6. Describe it in at least 100 words.
In this financial modeling course we have learned a variety of different tools that could be useful for the CFI Global Financial Modeling Competition. While this competition specifies using Excel to build a valuation model and not R markdown, the skills I have learned in this course are sure to be beneficial. In particular, the lessons on performing technical analyses, stock performance analyses, and portfolio performance analyses are sure to be helpful in performing a valuation model for the selected company. This course has given me a lot of the framework that I would need to compete in this competition.
Q8 List things that you learned in other finance courses at PSU that could be helpful for your project in Q6. Describe it in at least 100 words.
Other financial courses that I have taken at Plymouth State, such as Business Computer Applications and Financial Management could also be helpful in this competition. Business Computer Applications taught me the fundamentals of using Excel, which is very helpful as this competition required entrants to provide their valuation model on Excel. In my Financial Management course, I learned how to plan for the future by understanding cash flow and financial goals. It has helped me to make better financial decisions and manage the risk involved in things like investments. These skills will be beneficial in this competition by helping me perform my financial modeling valuation.
Q9 Check the finance blog below and see if you see any post that may be helpful for your project in Q6. Discuss how it can be helpful in at least 100 words. Hint: The author of the blog writes articles on financial analysis using R. https://rviews.rstudio.com/categories/reproducible-finance-with-r/
While I did not find an article in the finance blog that would likely be directly helpful in the competition, one stood out to me and could in fact be beneficial for such a competition. The article I chose is called “Introduction to Volatility” and lays out the framework for understanding portfolio volatility, variance, and standard deviation. Like mentioned before, I do not think this will be directly helpful in performing a discounted cash flow valuation modeling project, but it is helpful in furthering my financial knowledge. The more I know about finance as a whole, the better I will be able to perform in this competition.
Q10 List things that you think could be helpful but not taught/offered at PSU finance courses. Discuss how it can be helpful in at least 100 words.
I am by no means a finance expert, in fact, I am quite a beginner as my major in Marketing. With my little experience in the world of finance, I really do not have the finance knowledge to give recommendations on what finance things would be helpful to add into courses. Perhaps one thing that could be helpful would be a bigger lesson on what R is really used for in the real world for a non-finance major like myself. Going off of this, perhaps incorporating a real world case study or two into the course could help make the connection of how the work we did can be applied in the real world. This could help us non-finance majors apply what we learned, as this material is very new to me. That being said, I thought that this course was incredible and it opened my eyes to the world of finance even more. The work was challenging but super interesting and satisfying to complete!