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Personally making strategies and investments helps a lot in finding jobs2017-08-16Hit:885

[Ten years since KAIST Student Investment Fund (KSIF) was launched]

Separate divisions for strategy and operations invested 1 billion won. Most graduates find jobs in securities firms


The KAIST Student Investment Fund (KSIF), which has been running for ten years, has become an incubator for professionals in the financial investment industry.


KSIF, supported by the KAIST Graduate School of Finance, is Korea’s first investment fund for students. In 2008, Suh, Nam-Pyo, the president of KAIST at the time, launched KSIF and allocated KRW 1 billion for a fund that students can directly employ. Students make investment strategies, decide which stocks to buy, and analyze when to buy and sell and future market variables. Under the guidance of Professor Cho, Hoon, an advisor for the National Pension Service Investment Management, around 20 students of KSIF, including two doctoral students majoring in finance, manage the fund.


Most of the 329 members of KSIF have found jobs in securities firms, asset management firms, National Pension Service Investment Management, or the Korea Investment Corporation (KIC). KIC is a sovereign wealth fund. Shin, Geonsoo (31), a member of KSIF who joined Truston Asset Management last year, said, “It was a great help for me to study various investment strategies and risk management methods by managing a school fund of 1 billion won.”

 

KSIF consists of a control tower of the investment strategy division and four management divisions. The investment strategy team analyzes the macroeconomic trends and decides the allocation of assets. The management team is divided into three teams for stock management and one team for alternative investment. The stock management teams manage index funds, in addition to existing active funds, social responsibility investment (SRI), and they utilize investment strategies by employing machine learning techniques. The alternative investment team invests in a variety of products, such as overseas futures and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). They meet every week at Reuters Trading Room in Hongreung, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, to present and discuss investment outcomes and strategies. Through this meeting, they determine investment strategies and execute the investments. Representatives of the financial investment industry, including Yoo, Sang-ho, the president of Korea Investment & Securities Co., Ltd., attend the annual report meeting held every fall.


The rate of return is not high. Since 2008, the cumulative return until May of this year s 17.12%. The fund balance is 1.1 billion won. This year’s rate of return is 6.96%. KAIST says, “The goal of KSIF is educating through trial and error, rather than making a profit. KSIF aims to train financial experts who have both theoretical and practical skills.”


Contact : Yu, Eunjin ( ejyu@kaist.ac.kr )

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