Community. A nine letter word that, when boiled down, simply means a sense of belonging. Some find it with friends, others find it in sports—members of the Scheel Fund find it in the Finance Lab on Thursday nights from 8-9 p.m.
In 2014, Steve Scheel donated $100k to start what has been deemed the Scheel Fund. This generous gift has given a group of students the opportunity to get some real world investing experience and practice, something they cannot always get from classes.
This year the club has rebranded and is working on a larger social media and on campus presence. While the goal is always to diversify their investment portfolio and increase the money they have, their bigger goal for this year is to expand the club.
Meetings take place in the James Parke Technology Center, located within the labyrinth that is the Business Center on Concordia College’s campus. The room is filled with large monitors with a chair at each one. There is a large screen at the front and back of the room for easy viewing when presenting, which can be a huge culture shock for anyone who has never taken a class here before.
“We encourage students of all majors to join this club to allow for new perspectives while discussing the current events that shape our economy,” said Isaac Johnson, the Scheel Fund’s president and portfolio manager.
Johnson is a senior at Concordia majoring in finance. He has been a part of the fund for two years, and his goal is to leave the fund better than he found it. Johnson typically leads the meetings, but tonight was led by Devon Ramstad.
Ramstad is also a senior and is studying business with concentrations in finance and economics. He is one of the club’s assistant portfolio managers, and tonight, their leader.
Ramstad started the meeting with a general introduction and a quick recap of what’s going on in the world of finance this week. This was to help ease newer members into the flow of things. The language of finance and investing can be a lot for students first experiencing it, but they certainly do not want this to deter any possible members.
With the basics and housekeeping tasks out of the way, they start getting into the nitty gritty of it, talking about potential investment opportunities and companies to start watching. “We want to find companies that are fundamentally sound,” said Ramstad.
One of the best ways to learn is by doing. Dylan Hinners, one of the club’s senior analysts, said that he has learned a lot from participating in the fund, more than he would have from just his finance classes.
The group is all about educating its members and not letting a difference in knowledge stop students from participating. During the meeting, one of the newer members brought up an investment opportunity. Instead of shutting it down, Ramstad walked the group through whether this would be a good company to invest in.
They didn’t end up investing, but still took the time to help the newer member understand why. “Us juniors and seniors have taken more finance classes. We lead the conversation,” said Ramstad.
The group invests on the Charles Schwab platform, using an educational account. “This just means no one in the fund can personally make money, and we will never have to pay taxes. This helps with the learning experience and longevity of the fund,” said Johnson.
This allows the club to trade in real market time. At the end of their meetings they send an email to professor Carrete who then executes the trades the group has decided upon. Having Carrete execute trades helps ensure that the group sticks to the agreed upon plan.
The meeting ended right around 9 p.m., but quite a few members stuck around, continuing to talk about investing opportunities and the goings on of the finance world. To them, the Scheel Fund is more than an event to fill their Thursday night; it’s their community.
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