Boston College Fund Hooks Up With Interactive Brokers

This article was written by Stockpickr member Ira Krakow.

The 25-year-old Boston College Investment Club watched its stake in the stock market reach a club high of $360,000 in November 2007. Since then, extreme volatility took over the market, and at the club's final meeting before winter break on Dec. 3, members discovered the value of their portfolio had dropped to $345,293.

With an essentially hands-off approach to the portfolio during winter break, how has the B.C. Investment Club's portfolio held up? Here's a look inside the club's first meeting of 2008 and how they plan to navigate the continuing choppy market with Interactive Brokers IBKR.

Monday, January 28: When the Market Gives Your Portfolio Lemons ...

As the club's co-directors of research Steve Regan and Tony Weldon presented during their market review, the stock market has not been generous to many investors over the past month and a half. Regan and Weldon highlighted such negative forces as poor winter holiday sales, fears of recession and numerous corporate writedowns.

Nevertheless, the club's portfolio did outperform its benchmark . "Our portfolio has suffered recently due to the overall downturn in the market", says club president Scott Atha, "but we continue to outperform the market. Last semester our portfolio was relatively flat, with a return of 0.33%, whereas the S&P 500 SPX had a return of -3.56%. We have been pleased with the relative performance of our portfolio, especially given the fact that we manage a long -only portfolio".

As in previous years, during the winter break, nobody was watching the club's portfolio, which is heavily weighted towards financial stocks such as Bank of America BAC, JP Morgan JPM and Wachovia Bank WB. "Since that last meeting [of the fall semester]," says Atha, "the fund lost 6.8%, or $23,500." As of Monday, Jan. 28, the portfolio is worth $321,800. "Even so, the portfolio continues to solidly beat the S&P 500, which lost 11.31% during the same period."