The Fourth Annual Texas Investment Portfolio Symposium - TIPS 2007 - was held on Saturday, March 24, 2007, at Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business. Over 130 students and faculty from 12 regional universities joined investment professionals from all over the country at this interesting and informative meeting.

The Texas Investment Portfolio Symposium is a forum for students and faculty at universities in Texas and surrounding states with Investment Management curriculum. This conference provides participants with a platform to interact with investment industry professionals and to advance their learning about industry trends, issues and current hot topics.

At TIPS 2007, students, faculty and investment professionals joined forces and used real-life skills needed in the investment world for a day of competition, hands-on experience, and intriguing lectures from some of the market's top investment professionals.

This year there were two competitions:

1. Portfolio Management Finals Competition: This competition is similar to a "finals presentation" that all investment firms make in order to compete for institutional business. The final round of the competition, which took place in the afternoon on the day of the symposium, consisted of a ten-minute presentqation by student teams representing each of the finalist schools, followed by a question-and-answer period. The judges of the competition were practicing investment professionals, and the judging was based on the same criteria used to judge a professional money manager. The top three teams were awarded a trophy at the closing meeting of the Symposium. First Place went to the team from Baylor University. University of Houston placed second, and Rice University placed third.
2. Investment Research Challenge - Texas: This competition is a nationwide educational initiative of the CFA Institute in which students compete as they learn how to research, write and present a stock analyst's report on a publicly traded company. IRC-Texas was established to encourage Texas-based universities to participate in the program, and is co-sponsored by the Houston Society of Financial Analysts and the CFA Society of Dallas/Fort Worth. The last step in the IRC-Texas competiton, the final oral presentation, was held as part of TIPS. Two teams made it to the final oral presentation: Rice and TCU. Rice ended up in first place, and as the winner of IRC-Texas will attend the National Challenge and compete with the winners of other Challenges held around the country.

Keynote speakers at TIPS were Larry Speidell, CFA, a Co-Portfolio Manager with Ondine Asset Management, who spoke on "Frontier Market Investing," and John W. Peavy III, Chief Investment Officer, RPR Equity Advisors, and Professor of Finance, Texas Christian University, who spoke on "Stock Prices: Only Two Things Matter." Break-out session topics included "Hedge Funds 101," "Taxes and Private Wealth Management" and "Sell-Side Research."

For more information, please contact:
Susan Etheredge
TIPS Program Coordinator, and Managing Director of the Southwest Securities Financial Markets Center
Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University
Email: Susan_Etheredge@Baylor.edu
Phone: 254-710-6148