How KU Stock-Pickers Play Offense

Last night, the University of Kansas Jayhawks won the N.C.A.A. basketball championship (their third and first since 1988). But how well do students in the Applied Portfolio Management Program (APM) at the "KU" School of Business perform in the stock market?

Started in 1994, the $1.4 million student-run APM investment fund is revered for cranking out major returns. "Our alpha has been very good over the past few years," says Ryan Peschka, one of the fund's assistant portfolio managers. "Since January of 2003, we're actually up 475%."

In fact, the program's impressive success prompted KU professors Catherine Shenoy and Kent McCarthy, the APM's faculty advisors, to pen a book on their experiences with the group, titled Applied Portfolio Management.

And while investing doesn't seem to have a lot to do with basketball, you might be surprised at just how much KU's basketball team owes the APM. Each year, the fund uses part of its proceeds to fund a scholarship for one of KU's basketball players. This year's recipient: Jayhawks senior guard Russell Robinson. ...