The Smeal Trading Room (lower right) occupies a prominent location in the Business Building and is home to the Nittany Lion Fund.

Wall Street Bound

All eyes are on two of the Nittany Lion Fund's student managers standing at the front of the Smeal College Trading Room. If the room had a spotlight, they would be under it. The pair is jointly responsible for one of the fund's sectors, and a stock in their portfolio has been tanking. Time to pull the plug. But Professor J. Randall Woolridge wants to know why they didn't sell sooner.

"This stock has killed your sector," says Woolridge, CEO of the fund and the Goldman Sachs and Co. and Frank P. Smeal Endowed University Fellow. "Why wait on the sell pitch?"

The fund managers refuse to rattle, and instead make their case—illustrated by several charts and graphs—for standing pat until now. This coolness under pressure, coupled with financial savvy beyond their years, is the reason student leaders of the Nittany Lion Fund have become a hot commodity on Wall Street.

"It doesn't get more real in the world of finance than when you have real money and real investors," Woolridge says. "Our students are using what they learn in the classroom and applying it directly to the management of the Nittany Lion Fund portfolio."

It's a portfolio that has 68 investors, most of them Penn State alumni. According to Woolridge, investors have invested in the fund because they believe in the students. "The investment management business is about people and process," he adds. "They believed in our people. We had to prove with the Nittany Lion Fund that we also had the process in place."

The results speak for themselves. The fund has grown to more than $5 million in investor assets since launching in 2005. Year-to-date, it has outperformed the S&P 500 Index by more than 8 percent, and success for the fund has translated into dream-job opportunities for the students running it.

Last summer each of the fund's 18 junior managers landed an internship, with 17 landing jobs on Wall Street with firms such as Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, and UBS. Even many of the fund's sophomores—still a year away from when students usually attract Wall Street interest—landed internship positions last summer.

President Morgan Samet, who will graduate in May, spent the summer working for Goldman Sachs in the firm's Investment Banking division.

"I actually traveled on a two-week road show through Europe and the U.S. as part of my internship," Samet says. "I don't think they would've let an intern travel with a client for an extended period of time if I hadn't been previously exposed to situations similar to that through my involvement in the Nittany Lion Fund. It definitely helped me stand out from my peers."

In July, Samet will return to Goldman Sachs full time. She is not the only one leaving Smeal behind. Each year, 75 percent of the Nittany Lion Fund's student leaders graduate.

Into the void leap select candidates from the Penn State Investment Association (PSIA). This minor-league proving ground gives Smeal students the chance to build their stock market expertise in preparation for a potential call-up to the Nittany Lion Fund.

But with millions of dollars at stake and huge career ramifications, nothing is guaranteed. This year, about 85 PSIA hopefuls vied for just 15 open Nittany Lion Fund manager positions. Leaders of the fund eventually decided to create four additional positions to accommodate the influx in stellar candidates.

"These are great students with great GPAs," Woolridge says, "but we've clearly seen much more competition among candidates. Students have seen firsthand what having the Nittany Lion Fund on your resume can do for their future."

If you're interested in learning more about the Nittany Lion Fund or investing, e-mail nittanylionfund@gmail.com.