SMIF Officer Spotlight
Student Research Projects
As a SMIF analyst and Finance major at GMU, you also have the opportunity to participate in student-led research with professors in the area. Past research has been published by the Wall Street Journal, CFA Institute, MarketWatch, and ETF Trends among other journals. George Mason University is the only university that guarantees student led research will be publicized in major publications.
2024 Student Work:
Joseph Turay & Taurus Patterson: CFA: Does a Stock’s Price Influence Its Risk Profile?
Katuta Kapinka & Lydia Samuel: WSJ: Do Bond Ladders Really Work?
Thomas Powars & Swikrit Acharya: VettaFi: The Impact of Currency Hedging on Performance
Camila Builes & Matthew Rickard: WSJ: Once a Trade is Named it is Already Too Late to Invest
Sarmad Mirza & Yewon Choi: WSJ: All Money-Market Funds Have the Same Yield, Right? Not Even Close
Will Marston, Vidhi Pathak, & Chris Ross: CFA: Decoupling Correlations: Global Markets since COVID-19
Kurshat Gheni & Heyuan Li: WSJ: Hedge Funds for the Masses Deliver Ho-Hum Returns—and Have High Costs
2023 Student Work:
Swikrit Acharya & Abdullah Khalid: WSJ:How to Use Industry ETFs to Ride Waves of Momentum
Duy Vu & Riyan Khawaja: WSJ:If Interest Rates Are Peaking, What Investments Are Likely to Do Best?
John Walton & Ben Korhnak : WSJ:Factor ETFs Fail to Deliver Their Promised Outsize Returns
John Shaffer & Giovanni Rustici: WSJ:Are Leveraged ETFs Worth the Costs and Risk?
Melvin Reyes & Alberto Vergara: WSJ:Do Commodities Provide a Hedge Against Recessions? We Ran the Numbers
Herman Jentoft & Simon Kanazeh: CFA: Fed Chair Congressional Testimony: Has the Market Played Favorites?
Sahitya Balguri & Ebba Cha: WSJ:Complex Fund Names May Be a Warning Sign for Investors
Patrick McManus& Luis Paz-Perez: CFA: A US GDP-Weighted Index
Kexin Xu & Yuge Pang:CFA:Do Sentiment Metrics Matter to the Markets?
Sean Prendergast & Zhuo Chen: WSJ: Active vs. Passive ETF’s: How They Stack Up
Christopher Lindholm & Dongxuan Hou: WSJ: When Investors Do the Most Harm With Market Timing
Xiaozhu Zhang & Ruben Devia, CFP: CFA Do the Best Equity Fund Managers Follow the Bond Market?
Clarita Orosco & Huei Lee: WSJ:Beware, Options Investors: You Pay a High Trading Price Compared With Stocks
Dhruv Peri & Huei Lee: WSJ:Does a Valuation-Based Portfolio Beat a ‘Lazy’ One?
Mason Leppa & Dhruv Dewan:WSJ:How Much More Tax-Wise Are ETFs vs. Mutual Funds?
Zihan Chen: CFA:Can Tracking Error Boost Index Funds’ After-Tax Returns?
Ricky Singh & Albert Valencia: WSJ:Which Mutual Funds Are Good for Your Taxes?
Zihan Chen& Yuyi Shi: CFA:Bitcoin Mining and Local Stock Market Performance Correlations
Tao Wei &Junchen Xia:CFA: Short Squeezes: A Four-Factor Model
2022 Graduates’ Work:
Renzo Victoria & Qi Zhang: WSJ: What Types of Bonds Deliver the Best Returns?
Lance Nguyen & Nicholas Guidos: CFA: What Can AI Do for Investment Portfolios? A Case Study
Jason Huddler & Jianyu Ren CFA: Bonds and Fixed Income: Where’s the Hedge?
Luis Paz-Perez & Brandon Gilbert: WSJ: When Is the Best Time of Day to Buy an ETF?
Jordan Doyle CFA: Growth, Value, and Skewness: Are Growth Stocks a Lottery-Like Bet?
Yuge Pang & Zi Yang WSJ:Which Investments Do Best—and Worst—in a Recession
Xinran Li WSJ:Before the Fed Acts, It Pays to Buy Stocks
Luis Paz-Perez CFA: COVID-19 Correlations: Local Cases, Local Returns? | CFA Institute Enterprising Investor
Junchen Xia & Maciej Kowalski CFA: Digital Gold or Fool’s Gold: Is Crypto Really a Hedge against Equity Risk? | CFA Institute Enterprising Investor
Athena Salomons & Darian Whitfield WSJ: When the ‘Barbell’ Investment Strategy Does—and Doesn’t—Work
Zihan Chen & Yiming Xie WSJ: Which Stocks Do Best During High Inflation?
Lincoln Berkson & Katherine Vargas Medina CFA: How Sharp Is the Sharpe Ratio? An Analysis of Global Stock Indices
Jaehee Lee & Natalia Palacios WSJ: Which Investments Do Best When Real Interest Rates Are Negative?
Patrick McManus & Geoffrey Oliver CFA: Portfolio Diversification: Harder Than It Used to Be?
Cameron Hair & Georgi Minov WSJ: As the Fed Raises Interest Rates, and Other Central Banks Don’t, What Will That Mean for U.S. Stocks?
Marco Favro & Michael Yelland CFA: Options Markets: How Far Have Implied Transaction Costs Fallen?
Drew Hardin & Amine El Boury CFA: Technical Analysis Revisited: Moving Averages = Above Average Returns?
Sasha Mironova & Kendra MacBruce WSJ: Investing in a Global Stock Fund? Find Out Where the Fund Manager Is From
Kanwal Ahmad & Tao Wei The Conversation: Want to master Wordle? Here’s the best strategy for your first guess
Kevin Mocknick WSJ: The ‘January Effect’ Doesn’t Hold Up With Stocks. But Bonds Are a Different Story
Ying Liu & Amber Wilkins CFA Institute: Fama and French: The Five-Factor Model Revisited
2021 Graduates’ Work:
Cade Irwin ETF Trends: What Can Buffered ETFs Do for Your Portfolio?
Kanwal Ahmad WSJ: Just How Valuable Is Tax-Loss Harvesting?
Ioana Baranga WSJ: Should You Invest With Fund Managers Who Have Lots of Experience?
Reina Tran & Tao Wei ETF Trends: What Covered Call ETFs Can Do for Your Portfolio
Juhee Hong & AnhMinh Luu CFA Institute: Chinese and World Stock Market Co-Movements: Two Findings
Tyler Harb WSJ: Should Investors Create Their Own Target-Date Fund?
Beau Fitzpatrick WSJ: The Surprising Risks of Investing in ESG Funds
Zack McKannan CFA Institute: Revisiting Beta: How Well Has Beta Predicted Returns?
Valerie Mayer CFA Institute: Meme Stocks and Systematic Risk
Ana Garcia CFA Institute: Low- or High-Volatility – Which Wins the Return Battle?
Pamy Arora WSJ: Your Fund Manager Is Lending Out Your Holdings. Should You Be Worried?
Elan Guzman WSJ: What Should You Keep in a Market Correction: Winners or Losers
Michael Braaten & Mike Brynda WSJ: Are Tax-Efficient Funds Worth it?
Mohanad Aldayel & Ethan Ioannou CFA Institute: Where to Allocate Fixed Income?
Aidan Eccles & Lindsey Coffey CFA: Peak Diversification – How Many Stocks Diversify a Portfolio?
Daniel Arguedas-Cornejo & Emily Baucom WSJ: Convertible Debt Funds – Are They Worth It?
Chaitanaya M. Vij CFA Institute: Is this Tech ‘Bubble’ the same as the Dot-Com Bubble?
Hoai Nguyen & Abdallahi Ely Telmoudy CFA Institute: SPACs – An Uncorrelated Asset Class?
Beau Fitzpatrick ETF Trends: Do Low Interest Rates Force All Investors to be ESG Investors?
Stephanie Fincher & Eric Dzik WSJ: Should Investors Buy a Stock After It Splits?
Chaitanaya M. Vij CFA Institute: Stocks Turned Upside Down? The COVID-19 Beta Effect
2020 Graduates’ Work:
Sahil Saini CFA Institute: Tesla and the S&P 500: What Could Have Been?
Ano Glonti & Shaista Khodabux CFA Institute: Trading at All Hours: The Portfolio Implications
Ano Glonti & Brian Peirce CFA Institute: How Long Does a Competitive Advantage Last?
Sufia Abdul-Rauf & Oriela Poga ETF Trends: Can ETFs Persist in the ESG Space?
Morgan Rink & Maximilian Simkins CFA: Should Fundamental Investors Give Up on Value Stocks?