Massey University has established a Trading Room at its Albany (North Auckland) Campus, stating that the facility is first of its kind in the country.
The Trading Room is the initiative of Associate Professor Russell Gregory-Allen, who will oversee the Trading Room as Project Manager.
Stated to be seven years in the making, the Trading Room would provide finance students real-life fund management experience.
Modern equipment
NZX Chief Executive Tim Bennett described the Trading Room as ä great addition to a lovely campus.
“Future Fund Managers of the University are fortunate to have the facility within their place of study comprising the state-of-the-art equipment, among which are Bloomberg financial terminals, a live stock price ticker and information and news screens,” he said, during his visit to the Campus on October 4, 2013.
Additional Funding
Dr Gregory-Allen said that Massey already had a student-managed investment fund, students can now make use of modern technology to learn and do research.
The first groups of finance students are going through the process of gaining their Bloomberg Essentials Certification and using the facility for research projects, including stock report assignments. We can look up every single index, virtually every single stock in the world, with information updated in real-time,” he said.
Student Pierre Burgers said that the university is making students more marketable.
Dr Gregory-Allen’s vision is to establish an integrated finance research facility at Massey, and a Trading Room with more terminals, and access data not only from Bloomberg but also from Factset, Reuters Eikon and Capital IQ.
“The planned facility will include a market simulation lab where researchers can run trading and market interaction experiments. I am seeking $1 million endowment to go into the Student Investment Fund, which will then be able to produce income for research grants and student scholarships,” he said.
Established in 1996, the Fund has performed well against the NZX50.
Postgraduate student Daniel Feller said that Massey student currently manage about $28,000 and that working with $1 million would enhance their experience.
Photo Caption:
Dr Russell Gregory-Allen (Centre) with Tim Bennett (left) and Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Ted Zorn (right) at the Massey Trading Room (Picture by Massey News)
