CFA Institute Research Challenge

An educational initiative that promotes best practices in equity research among the next generation of analysts

The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition which provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis and professional ethics. Each student participant will be tested on their analytic, valuation, report writing and presentation skills and gain real-world experience as they assume the role of a research analyst.

More than 5,000 students from over 1,000 universities, 99 CFA Local Level Challenges, and 140 local hosts in 75 countries and territories with more than 3,500 dedicated member volunteers participated in the 2016-2017 CFA Institute Research Challenge.

Click here for details on how the Research Challenge works.

CFA Society Chicago is proud to host the local level of the CFA Institute Research Challenge in Chicago.

Schedule of Events

Research Challenge spans October 2017 through February 2018 and consists of the following components:

• CFA Society Chicago Research Challenge Kick-Off Webinar (October 6, 2017)

• CFA Society Chicago to officially announce Feature Company (October 6, 2017)

• CFA Society Chicago to assign each team an industry mentor (October 6, 2017)

• Mentoring by a professional Research Analyst (6 hours between October 6, 2017 – January 19, 2018)

• Teams finalized and registered with CFA Society Chicago and CFA Institute (October 20, 2017)

• Student Registration

• Volunteer Registration

• Student and Faculty Advisor registration deadline for Feature Company Presentation (October 20, 2017)

• Feature Company Presentation (Nov 10, 2017)

• Equity Research Report due to CFA Society Chicago (January 19, 2018)

• Advancing Teams Announced (February 9, 2018)

• CFA Society Chicago Local Level Competition (February 23, 2018)

• Americas Regionals in Boston, MA (March 19-20, 2018)

• Global Final in Seoul, Korea (April 20, 2018)

Feature Company: CDW

CDW is a leading multi-brand technology solutions provider to business, government, education and healthcare organizations in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. A Fortune 500 company with multi-national capabilities, CDW was founded in 1984 and employs nearly 8,800 coworkers. For the trailing twelve months ended June 30, 2017, the company generated net sales of nearly $15 billion.

Our broad array of offerings range from discrete hardware and software products to integrated IT solutions such as mobility, security, data center optimization, cloud computing, virtualization and collaboration. We are technology “agnostic,” with a product portfolio that includes more than 100,000 products from more than 1,000 brands. We provide our products and solutions through our sales and service delivery teams, consisting of nearly 6,000 customer-facing coworkers, including more than 2,000 field sellers, highly skilled technology specialists and advanced service delivery engineers.

CDW Website

CDW Stock Quote

2017 - 2018 Program

Participating Universities

Aurora University
Benedictine University
Illinois Institute of Technology
Lake Forest College
Loyola University
Northeastern Illinois University
Northern Illinois University (2 Student Teams)
Olivet University (2 Student Teams)
St. Xavier University (2 Student Teams)
University of Chicago
University of Chicago Booth School of Business
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2 Student Teams)

QUESTIONS?

2017 – 2018 CFA Society Chicago

Local Level Winner

Illinois Institute of Technology

Read official press release

2016 – 2017 CFA Society Chicago

Local Level Winner

Illinois Institute of Technology

Read official press release