By Kanav Sahani, Class of 2023

Pursuing My Passion for Finance with the Help of The Class of 1968 V Form Grant

Editor’s Note: This project was made possible with the support of the Class of 1968 V Form Fellowship. At their 25th reunion, the Class of 1968 created a fund to provide grants to V Form students for independent study during the school year or, more commonly, during the summer between V and VI Forms. Their intent in establishing this fund was to reward independent thinking, ingenuity, and planning and to encourage the student in exploring non-traditional fields of inquiry or using non-traditional methods of investigation.

Student-Submitted Note: I received the Class of 1968 V form grant so that I could attend a summer program at Bentley University called Wall Street 101.

I chose to attend the Wall Street 101 course at Bentley University because it provided me with a unique opportunity to pursue my passion for finance and experience firsthand the dynamic environment of a real actual trading room, unlike any other program available today. 

I developed a keen interest in finance after I watched a Youtube video featuring the renowned Warren Buffett. In the video, Buffet recommended reading The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. Since then, I have enhanced my financial knowledge through books, professionals, internships, Youtube videos, and courses at Wharton and Georgetown. I wanted to share my knowledge, and to do so, I founded the finance club at my former school, Fay, and took on a leadership role in the finance club at St. Mark’s, known as SM Finance. The courses at Bentley taught me three topics that my previous research had not to fully elucidated: Stock Market & Investment Research, Portfolio Management, and Macroeconomy and Financial Markets. I plan to become an investment banker, and this course gave me an overview of all the needed knowledge.

My daily schedule involved attending a class with a professor who delivered us a unique lesson every day, listening to watching a guest speaker who shared valuable insights on finance-related topics, and collaborating with my group on our capstone project.

During the first week (Course: Stock Market & Investment Research), I had the opportunity to learn from a Bentley professor about different investment styles (active vs. passive investing), how to analyze financial statements, industry analysis (Porter’s 5 forces and SWOT analysis), ratio analysis, valuation of cash flows, and investment behavior and the psychology of investing. I applied all these skills to work on a final presentation I would present with my group at the end of the week. We wrote an investment thesis for why someone should invest in NVDA (Nvidia). It was a successful presentation, and I won second place individually for my work in the class.

During the second week (Course: Portfolio Management), I delved into the art of managing a portfolio, which is considered one of the most lucrative, challenging, and well-paying careers not only in the financial sector but also in the world. This course was the most challenging of the three. I learned about various asset classes, including bonds, currency, derivatives, commodities, and more, and gained insights on how to manage a portfolio and diversify properly. Additionally, I learned how portfolio managers utilize statistical figures like standard deviation and variance to maximize returns as well as how to use excel, which is a  fundamental requirement for this field. At the end of this week, my group presented a mock portfolio to an audience, and I won third place individually for my contribution to the class.

During the third and final week (Course: Macroeconomy & Financial Markets), I learned about the idea of trade-offs and scarcity, opportunity cost, inflation, the laws of supply and demand, fiscal and monetary policy, and the Federal Reserve. As part of the capstone project, I engaged in a debate on the future trajectory of the economy, whether it would worsen or improve. Despite the challenging nature of the argument, and despite the fact that the economy did indeed experience a downturn since the beginning of June, our team argued that the economy would eventually recover, and we won the debate.

Overall, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to expand my knowledge of finance through the guidance of professionals and the chance to interact with influential figures in the business world, including a retired Fidelity portfolio manager who came as a guest speaker. I am now equipped to thrive in my college studies as a finance major.

Kanav Sahani is a member of the Class of 2023 from Sudbury, MA. Kanav enjoys researching finance. Kanav loves to read into the economy and how it works and hopes to study Finance in college.