Finance students from King Saud University emerged the winners of the 2015-16 CFA Research Challenge organized by the CFA Institute, Saudi Arabia chapter.
The champion team will now represent Saudi universities in the upcoming CFA Institute Research Challenge to be held in April in Chicago.
The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition which provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis and professional ethics.
The winning members of the KSU team include Anas Alrashood, Rayan Alamer, Tariq Alatar and Musaad Al-Shuraim.
Each student participant will be tested on their analytic, valuation, report writing and presentation skills and gain real-world experience as they assume the role of a research analyst.
The KSU team won the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Research Challenge after fierce competition with other university teams from across the Kingdom, KSU media department said on Tuesday.
Being an educational initiative that promotes best practices in equity research among the next generation of analysts, the competition started in November 2015 when all teams were required to submit and present an investment analysis report on Jarir Marketing Co., a publicly traded company, with a recommendation to buy, sell or hold the stock, an official at the media department said.
Expressing his excitement over the significant success, Mohammed Al-Jebreen, chairman of the finance department, expressed his gratitude to KSU for its continuous support to improve academic programs that are aligned with the requirements of the Saudi labor market which will help to achieve goals set under the Nitaqat program for Saudization.
Moreover, Abdullah Al-Shwer, academic adviser to the winning team, expressed his happiness for this significant achievement as it is a reflection of the high quality of KSU academic programs.