Ohio State's Best and Worst Stocks of Spring 2008

Do you think you could steer a $25 million portfolio to beat out the S&P? Here's the catch: you can only trade once a quarter.

While that may sound like a tough task, students in Ohio State University's Student Investment Management (SIM) program did just that. Here's a look at how they've done since January.

The Quarter That Was

We gave you your first look at the SIM program back in January. And while subprime rumblings were definitely being heard then, their effects on the market really didn't come to light until months later.

Needless to say, this quarter has been a challenging one for investors. But that challenge is multiplied when you're only allowed to trade once every three months.

However, despite their limitations on when they can buy and sell, the first SIM class of 2008 can certainly be called a success.

How much of a success? Spring's SIM class beat the S&P by 1.01% (down 402 basis points versus the S&P's 503 basis point loss). And while a percentage point might not sound like a lot, you've got to remember that unlike most other student-run investment funds, Ohio State's student fund managers only have a few months to work with. Over that period, SIM students ended up beating the average U.S. stock mutual fund by 66 basis points.

So which of those stocks helped 30 MBAs and undergrads from Ohio beat Wall Street?

One Sweet Apple

One of SIM's best performers this spring was Apple (APPL).

"With Apple, the timing couldn't have been better," says Matthew Falk, SIM's graduate associate. "Apple had kind of dipped, and it turned out that it coincided with the end of the quarter. We jumped in, and we're up 45% on that trade... that's over the course of two months."