Stock market

Spring 2013

Sick stocks

It’s cold and flu season. And no one is immune, not even Wall Street.

That’s the notion Brian McTier, a WSU Vancouver-based business school faculty member, and his colleagues explored when examining the impact of influenza on the U.S. stock market. McTier has been examining external events that might affect the stock market that weren’t normally modeled. Those effects include class action suits in securities, electronic funds transfer errors driven by sentiment, and the flu.

For the study, which is being published in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, the authors started with the hypothesis that high rates of influenza could affect trading as … » More …

Spring 2011

Real investments return real experience

Stock symbols and percentages march across a long ticker screen, but it’s not a Wall Street brokerage firm. It’s the fourth floor of Todd Hall at WSU, and the eyes monitoring the stock market belong to undergraduates managing the Cougar Investment Fund.

The students invest $1 million of the university’s endowment—the Cougar Investment Fund—in a large capitalization equity portfolio. Under the supervision of Rick Sias, WSU finance professor and Gary P. Brinson Chair of Investment Management, the class has outperformed the S&P 500 since 2001.

Sias approached the WSU Foundation and suggested the program in 2000. “We wouldn’t charge any … » More …