In their quest for excitement and some additional green, some aspiring student investors have earned a 20 percent return while investing with the College's only independent investing club.
The 1769 Investment Group, founded in the spring of 1996, has approximately $9,000 invested in the stock market, said group co-founder Evan Sotiriou '97. The group's holdings include such stocks as Sun Microsystems, Comp USA and K Mart.
The club has 35 members who meet weekly to discuss different stock options. Individual members contribute investment capital to the club's fund.
Decision-making power is proportional to each student's individual investment. The group uses no outside advisors and relies solely on the members' research and presentations.
Not all the group's investments have turned a profit, however. Alliance Entertainment, holder of Mel Torme's contract, was sold for $2.00 under the purchase price, and Miami Subs was sold for less than half what the club initially paid for the shares.
"We tend to invest in technology stocks which are high risk," Sotiriou said. "But our portfolio is balanced."
The overall success of that portfolio led the 1769 Group to propose a student-managed endowment fund for the College in October of 1996. The proposal called for the group to invest $250,000 of the College's endowment and to work to generate additional funds through alumni giving and pledges.
Ultimately, the Trustees rejected the proposal, Soutiriou said, despite the fact that a similar student-run fund already exists at the Amos Tuck School of Business.
"We had the support of the manager of the Endowment Fund," Sotiriou said. "This would be the first thing of its kind in the Ivy League. Alumni said they would like to give to something like this."
Sotiriou said the group is always looking for new members.
"We look for anyone who has the interest and excitement about the market," Sotiriou said. "The issue is learning, and this is definitely a learning experience."
The group is considering the possibility of investing in mutual funds and blue chips. "We're solely in stocks right now," Sotiriou said.
Sotiriou said he and the other founders selected the group's name in order to preserve the sense of student involvement without directly affiliating with the College.
