Last General Meeting! 04/13/09

Announcements:

-SENIOR CAREER PANEL next week, Monday, April 20th @ 9PM in Dalton 1
-OIG END OF THE YEAR PARTY on Monday, April 27th @ 9PM (location will be confirmed later)

Today was our last general meeting of the school year. Not many of you were able to make it, but we did discuss a few important matters. We spent a little bit of time talking about the benefits of investing in clean and renewable energy. We took a look at Obama's plan and it seems like now would be a good time to buy. We will ask more about it during the end of the year party. Next on our agenda was to look at some possible sells. The consensus was that we get rid of Exxon, Lockheed martin and Gold, but, again, we will discuss this a little more at the party.

Also, please be on the lookout for an email from Natalie asking for your opinion on these stocks! Please don't hold back and be sure to say something if you feel strongly one way or the other! As we prepare for summer and move into next year, we are really looking to restructure our portfolio by making it more diversified. You can help us! (Note: The most recently purchased stocks (McDonald's, Altria and Walmart) are performing well! This is great news!

See you all next week!

General Meeting 04/06/09

First, we helped Akua with her research on the company, Aqua America. We took a look at some annual reports and figures...I hope we were useful!

Second on the agenda was looking at our portfolio and discussing some more stock options. We took a look at Exelon Corporation and decided to look at some other possibilities in construction (since the Obama stimulus package focuses some of its attention to infrastructure). The companies that we looked at in the construction sector are Jacob's Engineering Group (JEC) and Fluor Corporation (FLR). Both look like relatively strong buys, however, we will be waiting until next week to make a final decision. Please come by with suggestions for or against these possible purchases!

Join us next week as we continue the discussion of our portfolio and take a closer look at construction and what it could mean for our returns. We will also be looking McKesson and Cardinal Health as the last two stock options that were presented earlier in the semester.

Also, mark your calendars for MONDAY. APRIL 20TH @ 9PM because we will be holding our annual Senior Panel. This is a great opportunity to hear about how seniors have managed to get a job in this economic climate! Bring questions!

That's all for now. See you next week!

Elections! 03/30/09

Today we voted on the '09-'10 Board! Here is a list of the new members:

President - Alyssa Martin '10
Portfolio Manager - Nathalie Schallock '10
Bank Treasurer - Sasha Bereznak '11
Secretary - Lilly Amirhekmat '11
Public Relations - Jill Settlemyer '10 & Yufan Wang '11

Please join us at next week's meeting to continue the discussion of our portfolio!

General Meeting 03/23/09

This meeting was dedicated entirely to updating and reformatting our website and blog. Thanks to the help of Akua, we will soon be reconstructing the layout and content of our website. Also, there is a high chance that we will be moving the blog over to the website. I will post more information about that as it comes!

Please join us at our next meeting as we return to our portfolio and discuss the upcoming elections. See you next week!

General Meeting 03/17/09

Alyssa Martin presented on careers in commercial banking and corporate finance. Rochi went over our portfolio and we discussed a few possible stock options such as McDonalds, gold, Birtish American Tobacco and Altria. We ended up bringing it to a vote and decided to buy 60 shares of McDonalds' stock. Lastly, Anna mentioned to the group that she has entered us into an Investopedia challenge. See her for more information. She also voiced her concern about how technology-oriented our portfolio is. Questions? Comments? Concerns? Bring them next week!

Please join us at our next meeting which will take place MONDAY MARCH 23RD @ 9PM. From now on our meetings will take place every Monday (still the same time and room), so please make a note of it!

General Meeting 03/03/09

In our last meeting before spring break, we decided to keep it casual. The first topic under discussion was changing our meeting day (same time, same place, different day of the week; which one works best for you?). Next, we talked about renting vs purchasing homes in the US and how that has played into the current economic crisis. We also discussed our website and the possibility of listing our members on the website or consolidating the blog with the website. Lastly, we talked about and read a recently published article in the Bi-Co News that talked about our club and how we are managing under the current conditions.

We will hold a meeting the Tuesday directly following break. At that time we will decide on another day to hold our weekly meetings.

Have a nice break! See you when we're back!

General Meeting 02/24/09

To start out we watched a video on MorningStar.com which discussed the possible benefits and repercussions of nationalizing banks in America.

We then continued to decide on stocks for our portfolio. After taking a vote, the group decided to buy Walmart and sell Target. Other stocks that were discussed include: Apollo, Netflix, Aastrom, Wyeth, Genetech and Coca-Cola.

Join us next week to look at more stocks and vote!

General Meeting 02/17/09

Today we discussed our portfolio. Members brought in some ideas as to what we can do to improve our returns. Here is a list of the proposed stocks:

General dynamics
Kraft
Nestle
Kapalan
Campbells
Unilever
Church & Dwight
TEVA
McDonalds
Apollo
Johnson & Johnson
ETFs
Citi
Netflix
Wal-mart
AAstorm
Gene Tech
Bonds
Coca-Cola
Brittish-American tobacco
Exelon
McKesson
Cardinal Health

It's great that we have such a long list! There's a lot to get through. Look at next week's post to see which ones we've decided on! See you then!

General Meeting - 02/10/09

-Announcement: Wharton Women Conference (register beforehand - $20)

-Rochi discusses our portfolio: Please come to next week's meeting with suggestions!!

-Watched the break-down of the proposed economic stimulus package on PBS.com

-Economic Series Discussion (email Fatma with questions)

See you all next week!

General Meeting - 02/03/09

Today we announced our election process to the members so that they can begin to prepare their statements, if they so desire. We used the remaining time to start our club bylaws. We came up with a simple draft that will be looked over by John sometime in the near future. Thanks for coming and we hope to see you next week!

General Meeting 01/27/09

Welcome back! Tonight we held a general meeting. We informed some of the new faces about what our club does. Please see handouts on our portfolio and charter proposal. What would you like to see more or less of this semester? This is your opportunity to let us know!
We also took a vote on what to do with our account. Should we put it in Bryn Mawr's name and have them regulate it or continue to run the account on our own? The outcome was unanimous: we will be managing our account on our own.
Lastly, we watched a video on the sub-prime mortgage crisis (see link below). Enjoy and see you next week!

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june08/domino_03-21.html

Guest Speaker 12/02/08

Kirsten Kemp came to talk to us about her job at Chatham Financial Group.

She graduated in '06 with a B.A./M.A. in Math and has been working for Chatham ever since. She described her work environment very similar to Bryn Mawr...full of intelligent people with a warm, family-like atmosphere. Chatham focuses a lot on hedging. She helps clients move away from rising interest rates.

She is on the advisory team, so she helps people (usually businesses) find lenders. Her main role is comparing all the term sheets; some being more quantitative versus qualitative. She comes up with a lot of the models which requires a lot of math, she said. The other parts of the company work with getting out of loans; some people want to get out of them so they help to figure out what you could do in that situation. She then spoke about the economy's current state and its influence on Chatham and her job specifically.

She was very happy to be here and we thank her for her time!

Lastly, please join us next week at our end of semester party!

UBS Presentation by BMC Alum, Diane Scarpa 11/18/08

Diane Scarpa comes back to her alma mater to discuss the logistics behind her current job as a Financial Advisor at UBS. She was an Art History major while at Bryn Mawr, but always had an interest in investment banking throughout her childhood. After graduation, she partnered with her father's business. Her clients are mostly women in their 30s and 40s.

Her powerpoint and handouts, entitled "Cornerstones of Investing," presented many useful tips for our group. She urged us to diversify, if possible, and explained various other ways in which we can invest our money.

We thank her for joining us.


Next week: Come watch a movie (we don't know which one yet) before we head off for Thanksgiving!!!

Club Donations 11/11/08

First, Rochi made an announcement about YES!+ (Youth Empowerment Seminar Plus). It's a 6 day program can help you de-stress while earning 2 PE credits!

Next, club donations. Each semester OIG holds a meeting where BMC clubs can come and present theirs reasons for needing funding. This semester the following clubs attended:

-ASA (Asian Students Association)
-Model United Nations
-AIS (Association of International Students)
-Pennies for Peace

At the end of the meeting, club members will vote on how much (if any) money to donate to each club.

I hope you enjoyed it. Yay for helping the community! See you next week!

General Meeting 11/04/08

Presentation of the current financial crisis (made by Rochi)

We kept the meeting very brief because it's ELECTION DAY!

See you next week!