Table of Contents___
3
Finance 101
4
A-Team Members
5
CTC 2011
6
ICC Opening Ceremony
7
Interviews
9
World in a Glance: 2011
11
Upcoming Events
THE EXCHANGE TEAM
12
Sponsorship Page
Margarit Jo, Editor-in-Chief Shirley Zhou, Staff Reporter Junyi Wang, Staff Reporter Special thanks to Rachel Chu for the cover!
Finance 101_________ Tuesday, October 4th of this year would have surely been a memorable night for many first-year students in Rotman Commerce. All freshmen who were interested in pursuing a career in the financial sector were cordially invited to our opening event of the year, Finance 101. This event, which aimed to introduce the basics of the financial knowledge as well as an overview of achieving a Specialist degree in Finance at the University of Toronto, was held in a seminar form. Students, previously registered on the Rotman Commerce Portal, eagerly entered the Kruger Hall to encounter a night of information and opportunities. The night started off with a brief but warm welcome from the President of the RCFA, Dawoon Chung. After introducing rest of the Executive members, Mr. Sean MacLure, the first guest speaker of the event, took the podium. Sean, who is the Relationship Manager for Finance Specialists at the Rotman Commerce Programs Office, gave a speech regarding the various resources on campus that would facilitate the transition from high school to university. He emphasized on the advantages of early and sincere networking within the Commerce Program, and highly recommended taking advantage of various career services in school such as the Rotman Commerce Career Centre, specifically catered towards the needs of Rotman students. The second guest speaker to address the audience was Ms. Heather Mills, the Marketing Communications Manager of the Financial Planning Standards Council (FPSC). Heather introduced the organization and emphasized on the growing demand for financial planners. She also explained the
steps to obtaining the designation as well as its benefits. She concluded her speech after sharing her experiences at the organization. Following a short break, the third speaker to stand at the podium was Ms. Noor El Masri. A current student at the Rotman Commerce program pursuing her Finance and Economics Specialist degree, Noor, who was also an intern as a banking analyst at Goldman Sachs last summer, was very helpful in sharing her experiences and providing practical advice from a student’s point of view. Specifically geared towards a career in investment banking, her speech, which was comprised of a day in her job and necessary qualifications to obtain the position, certainly gave many ambitious first-years hope and advice. The last speaker of the night was Mr. Kevin Mak. Kevin, who currently works as the Manager and Instructor at the Rotman Trading Lab at the Rotman School of Management, provided a quite interactive speech by giving a short ‘quiz’ to the audience to briefly introduce a couple of career paths one could pursue in the financial sector. There was no doubt that students found his speech very captivating and educational. After presenting the opportunity to be involved as one of the six A-Team members, RCFA’s first-year interns, the audience played a survival game incorporated with financial knowledge; the top prize was none other than a guaranteed interview for one of the A-Team positions! Afterwards, students participated in their very first networking session with the guest speakers and peers while enjoying a scrumptious dinner. RCFA would like to thank all guest speakers and attendants of Finance 101. It sure was a great event to start the 2011-2012 academic year!
The A-Team Meet the A-Team, the newest members of the RCFA Family! The Super Six will have the great opportunity to participate in our Mentor-Mentee Program for the 2011-2012 year.
“The Smiley” Name: Ashley Trinh College: Victoria College Hometown: Toronto, Ontario Position: Director of Corporate Relations Intern Favorite Finance Figure: Don Drummond, previously a Chief Economist of TD Financial One weird fact about me: Love old school video games!
“The Cannon” Name: Vincent Tam College: St. Michael's College Hometown: Richmond Hill, Ontario Position: Director of Finance Intern Favorite Finance Figure: Li Ka Shing, Chairman of Cheung Kong Holdings and the richest man of East Asian descent One weird fact about me: I always look “disoriented” in pictures.
“The Joker” Name: Joseph Chang College: New College Hometown: Vancouver, British Columbia Position: Director of Marketing Intern Favorite Finance Figure: Steve Jobs, the late Chair and CEO of Apple Inc. One weird fact about me: I can guarantee that I eat more than you. Eating contest? I'm down.
“The Tall Cool One” Name: Alex Ghinescu College: University College Hometown: Calgary, Alberta Position: Director of Events Intern Favorite Finance Figure: Richard Branson, Chairman of Virgin Group One weird fact about me: I watch way too much hockey. GO FLAMES GO!
“The Bro” “The West Coast Gal” Name: Kelly Wang College: New College Hometown: Vancouver, British Columbia Position: Director of Marketing Intern Favorite Finance Figure: Diane Swonk, the Chief Economist of Mesirow Financial One weird fact about me: I’m terrified of elevators.
Name: Mathew M.K. Ziomek College: St. Michael's College Hometown: Etobicoke, Ontario Position: Director of Events Intern Favorite Finance Figure: Charging Bull statue in NY One weird fact about me: I want to domesticate a bear and a raccoon. I would ride the bear like a furry-tractor while the raccoon plays folk songs on the mandolin.
CTC 2011 Bid 990! Ask 1010! These are the words of exhilaration and excitement that shook the walls of Kruger Hall this th Friday night. On November 11 , Rotman Commerce Finance th Association held its 11 annual Commerce Trading Competition. The reputable CTC competition is a fun interactive experience that exposes students to the typical daily workday of someone in selling and trading. Using Rotman Interactive Trader, students were given the opportunity to day trade and gain a better understanding of how markets work. This was followed by an outcry, which exposed students to the pre-computer automated times of trading.
Sales and Trading Each member of the team participated in one heat in which they practiced trading using a simulation of a real world institutional trader. Throughout the trading period in the Rotman Trading Lab, participants were given orders from large institutions to buy and sell various securities at different prices. The success of the trade depended on the trader’s ability to evaluate the market behavior and take advantage of the opportunity presented.
Outcry The outcry is the highly anticipated event in which traders make deals with others in an intense, loud, and fast paced environment. Similar to the trading of commodities and futures contracts, traders were physically trading deals to maximize profit or minimize loss.
Prizes First Place: $600 Second Place: $400 Third Place: $200
Congratulations to the 2011 winners Chak Ma Chan, Darren Ho, Rachel Hon, Jack Jie Zhou Cedric Chan, Boqiang Hong, Xiaorui Hu, Billy Kwok Yun Fei Chen, Kenny Wu, Haoxiang Yang, Yu Yang
ICC Opening Ceremony For all those who participated in the ICC Opening Ceremony, we hope it was exc iting! The ICC is a portfolio managem ent competition which will span over four months (November to March). As each team is given $1,000,000 in virtu al funds to manage, students learn the s kills and expose themselves to the work of professional hedge fund managers.
The Opening Ceremony introduced particip ants to the rules, regulations, terminologies that will be useful throughout the compet ition and featured three keynote speakers. They are Michael Yhip, president and Chief Investment Officer at Garrison Hill Capital Management Inc., Vlad Tasevski, Analyst at Claymore Investments, Inc. and Loren Fra ncis, Vice President of Private Client Group Barometer Capital Management Inc. Michae l Yhip and Vlad Tasevski have both gradua ted from the Rotman Commerce program a nd they talked about a wide range of inves tments, such as equity, fixed income, curre ncies and commodities.
PRIZES 1st Prize $600 + Guaranteed Interview + Dinner Oppor tunity with Garrison Hill Capital Manag ement Inc.
2nd Prize $300
3rd Prize $150
Interviews – Passmax What is Passmax?
underlying it.
Passmax is an independent CFA exam prep organization. We offer the most comprehensive prep program that’s available and we have one of the highest CFA exam pass rate in the industry. Our prep philosophy is centered around three principles: Discipline, Strategy, Hardwork.
What other prep programs does Passmax offer?
What’s different about Passmax from other CFA preparation programs? Most other prep programs are comprised of 3-hour long classes held during weekday evenings. With this limited time, it is impossible to cover all the material that may appear during the CFA Exam. Furthermore, by the time that evening rolls around, most students are exhausted and thus aren’t able to retain as much. Passmax classes, on the other hand, are held during the day on weekends and run for 6 hours each. This allows students to learn and retain more material. Additionally, while other prep programs come to a conclusion weeks before the CFA exam, the Passmax CFA Prep Program continues to provide support to its students to the day of the exam; no kidding, we will actually be there at the exam site with our students. What strategy does Passmax use to help students succeed?
We are currently putting together a prep program designed to prepare university students for finance interviews. This four-day workshop will cover issues and questions that usually come up during interviews for positions in Investment Banking, Sales and Trading, Research, and Portfolio Management. This workshop will run for 4 full days, and it is scheduled for January th 2nd to January 5 , 2012 (just before the campus recruiting season begins). We are quite excited about this new program, as we are very eager to see all our students succeed in the financial industry. (Readers can get more information about this interview prep program by emailing us at info@passmax.org, subject: Interview Prep). How many instructors are teaching at Passmax?
We have scheduled all our prep classes so that I will be the Exam Coach (i.e. instructor) throughout the entire prep program. By having only one Exam Coach for our CFA Prep Program, we are able to maintain a consistency in delivering the material to our students. We have found that our students really appreciate this. Other prep organizations tend to use different instructors for different topics. This “We’re all part of inconsistency can really throw the students off the same team; I am course.
We go over the entire CFA curriculum in 3 separate waves. Our first wave their coach and they What do you like most about being an consists of 13 regular weekend classes, during which we cover all the are my players. As a instructor of Passmax? examinable items. Our second wave is coach, I make sure I love the challenge. I love taking a group of a 4-day Super Review, during which we students, training them, and watching them will once again go over the core my players win!” pass what is a very difficult exam. The feeling concepts that we believe have the I get when the exam results are released is highest probability of appearing on the exhilarating. Even I were to win a super lottery, I would exam. And finally, during the third wave, we go over all still be here the next day, coaching my CFA candidates. the practice questions found in the CFA curriculum. Therefore, by the time that the CFA exam date comes For candidates who are committed to passing the CFA® around, our candidates will have gone over the material Exam upon their first attempt, PASSMAX is the right 3 separate times, thus increasing their likelihood of choice. For more information on PASSMAX’s prep passing the exam. services, visit www.passmax.org. Krikor Ghanaghounian is an award What is your teaching style? During each phase of our preparation, I use a ‘ground-up’ approach in explaining all the concepts, thus reducing (and many times eliminating) the need to memorize formulas. We don’t want our students to memorize formulas; we want them to understand the concept
winning finance instructor. He has taught undergrad and MBA students since 1998 and CFA candidates since 2003. He has taught business and finance in all the 3 business schools situated in Toronto (Rotman, Schulich, and Ryerson). In addition to being the Lead Instructor at PASSMAX, Krikor continues to be an MBA instructor at one of the nation’s top ranked business schools.
Interviews – ScotiaCapital Hi, Tim! Thank you for consenting to an interview with the Exchange! Please briefly introduce yourself and your job for our readers. My name is Tim Tutsch, currently an Associate in the Investment Banking group at Scotia Capital. I graduated from the University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management with a MBA in 2009. Previously, I had a summer position with another firm. What are your specific responsibilities as an Investment Banking Associate at Scotia Capital? I provide financial analysis, such as valuation models, and support to corporate clients as part of the Financial Institutions Group. We work with companies to either pitch ideas or support execution of transactions, including mergers and acquisitions and raising money debt and equity financing. As an Associate I am involved in research, financial analysis, modeling, and putting together presentation materials for our clients. What are the necessary skills and qualifications for your role? Certainly, you need to be interested in the capital markets, financial analysis and have strong research skills. The role requires doing research & developing analysis and financial modeling while also considering corporate strategy. For example, as a group, we may pitch a company on merging with another company, which would include all of the supporting research, merger analysis, as well as the strategic rationale.
What value do you find the most in your job? This job provides great training for someone with an Undergraduate Degree & involves significant responsibilities and learning opportunities, especially relating to finance & capital markets. It also provides you with personal challenges, and you get the opportunity to work with the highest level of executives internally and externally. It is an exciting career and you can gain valuable skills from it for the long-term. What should students do while in school to get related experience to this career? You need to have an interest in finance, accounting, and a strong work ethic, but you can build your experience through a broad set of summer jobs. I was a career switcher as I had an Undergraduate Degree in Political Science. Companies are interested in people with various experiences who show a strong interest in capital markets. You can certainly gain experience through summer jobs, networking with professionals, meeting and talking to people on the phone. Finally, let’s talk about your life as a student at University of Toronto. How was your overall experience in the Rotman School of Business MBA program? I’ve had great professors, colleagues/peers during my MBA at University of Toronto. It is a great school and being close to the financial district is another one of its advantages.
World in a Glance: 2011__ Here are some of the biggest news events that happened around the world this year.
World in a Glance: 2011__ These events have heavily affected the global financial sectors. Please enjoy the briefs!
Upcoming Events What’s next up on our list? Make sure you mark the dates for these exciting events hosted by the RCFA!
Rotman Commerce Finance Conference The RCFA proudly presents the Rotman Commerce Finance Conference. As a new initiative this year, RCFC aids students in exploring newly emerging topics within the financial industry and delve into greater depths of various designations. With a strong emphasis on more intimate networking opportunities, students will have the chance to meet the keynote speakers and panel speakers, as well as participate in insightful seminars. In addition, for those who are keen in getting a head start for the recruitment season, representatives from prestigious financial institutions will be present to participate in the recruiting session. As spaces are limited, we advise early purchase of tickets. Date: Friday, November 25, 2011 Time: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM Location: 89 Chestnut Hotel Audience: All Rotman Commerce students Dress code: Business formal Cost of admission: $40
CBV Case Competition Sponsored by the CICBV (Canadian Institution of Chartered Business Valuators), the CBV Case Competition is one of RCFA’s cornerstone events geared towards senior students. Students are encouraged to apply theoretical knowledge to practical aspects of the industry by being challenged to valuate a specific company. After initial stages of technical analysis and evaluation, participants will be presenting their case to industry professionals who will judge the competitors’ analytical and presentation skills. It is recommended that registrants attend the case workshop to familiarize themselves with the evaluation criteria as well as background knowledge. Date: Friday, January 20, 2012 Time: 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM Location: Waters Lounge, Woodsworth Residence Audience: All Rotman Commerce students Dress Code: Business formal Prize: 1st Place - $500; 2nd place - $300; 3rd place - $200
Forays into Finance Forays into Finance is our traditional event that facilitates junior students in enhancing their basic knowledge about the financial sector. Aiming to address more in-depth, specific topics in comparison to those of Finance 101, Forays into Finance is an opportunity for the A-Team members to showcase their accumulated learning objectives throughout the past academic year. This event, in a form of an interactive seminar, invites students to participate in gaining insights of various professions as well as inquire about opportunities to be involved in RCFA for the next academic year. Date: Friday, February 17, 2012 Time: 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM st nd Audience: 1 /2 year students of Rotman Commerce Dress code: Business casual
Sponsorship The Exchange magazine would like to show our deepest thanks to our generous sponsors.
Scotia Capital
PASSMAX
DISCLAIMER The views expressed in this publication do not reflect the views of the University of Toronto, the Rotman Commerce Programs Office, and/or its current or past sponsors.