Friday Night Stocks: NYU Undergrads Team Up to Beat the S&P

It's a Friday night at New York University; classes are over and the weekend has begun. Time for some stock analysis, right? Well, it is if you're a member of the Investment Analysis Group (IAG), a club for undergraduates with a penchant for investing. Here is a look at how their investment ideas have done so far and a few of the lessons learned along the way.

About the IAG

So, what exactly is the Investment Analysis Group? The IAG has been in existence, at least in some incarnation, at the NYU Stern School of Business since 1995. While it would be correct to describe the IAG as an investment club of sorts, this isn't your mom and dad's investment club. According to its Web site, the group attempts to "mimic, as closely as possible, a complete equities research organization."

And they mean it. The school's aspiring Wall Street gurus show up in droves to the group's weekly meetings -- some in professional attire -- ready to make money, both real and make-believe. The group maintains two portfolios whose performance is tied to real money from the school's administration (but I'll get to that in a bit).

An IAG meeting generally consists of a team of student-analysts pitching a new stock for one of the group's portfolios, followed by an often action-packed question-and-answer session.

New members can expect to learn a lot about the investing world by joining the Investment Analysis Group. Mattan Griffel, an IAG board member, says, "I have to give credit to IAG for almost everything I know about finance. While I'm currently a sophomore taking my first finance class, [thanks to the club], I already know enough to run my own personal portfolio ." Griffel has also learned how to "understand some of the very complicated areas of investing like building DCFs (discounted cash flows ) and analyzing financial statements."

The group has quite a bit to offer knowledge-hungry beginning investors, including a strong track record of beating the S&P 500 (see "How a Group of College Kids Outtraded the Pros").