Finance
UST Finance Students Compete on Global Stage in CFA Research Challenge
A select team of students from the University of St. Thomas’ Cameron School of Business has officially launched its bid for the FY 2025–2026 Texas Region CFA (Certified Financial Analyst) Institute Research Challenge, a prestigious competition often referred to as the “Investment Olympics” for university students.
The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual competition that provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis. The competition tests students’ analytical, valuation, report writing and presentation skills, challenging them to take on the role of real-world research analysts. The 2025–2026 cycle involves more than 6,000 students from more than1,000 universities worldwide.
Representing UST, the team is comprised of Team Captain Chih Jung Ting, MSF; Vice-Captain Daria Kostyukova, BBA/MSF; Reginald Paolo Laudato, BBA/MSF; Simon Wong, BBA in Finance; and Anjali Sebastian, BBA in Finance.
The team of five students has been selected to conduct an exhaustive equity analysis of a target company, competing against top-tier universities from around the Texas area.
“Taking part in the CFA Research Challenge has been the most intense and rewarding experience of my academic career,” said Chih Jung Ting, team captain. “We aren’t just reading case studies anymore—we are digging into real balance sheets, forecasting real economic shifts, and learning how to defend our ideas under pressure. It’s given us a true taste of what it means to be an analyst.”
The team is supported by Department Chair of Economics and Finance Dr. Joe Ueng, CFA, and faculty advisor Dr. Dan Hu. Assisting the team was industry mentor Matt Caire, CFA, CFP®, CMT from Vaughan Nelson, a seasoned professional who provides guidance on the intricacies of equity research.
“Our participation in the CFA Research Challenge is a testament to the caliber of our students and the strength of our curriculum,” said Dr. Ueng. “By applying advanced financial theory to a live market scenario, our students demonstrate that they are not just learners, but emerging professionals ready to contribute to the global financial community. We are incredibly proud of their dedication to academic excellence.”
Dr. Sidika Gülfem Bayram, the Cullen Foundation Endowed Chair of Finance and UST associate professor of Finance said participating in the CFA Research Challenge this year creates a pivotal moment for UST students.
“I’m impressed to see our students apply their curriculum knowledge to meet the depth and vast nature of the analysis required in such a fierce competition,” Dr. Bayram said. “I’m so proud of the effort the students put into the challenge.”
This year, the team has been tasked with analyzing Green Brick Partners, a publicly traded company in the consumer cyclical sector. During the past several months, the students have dedicated more than 150 hours to conducting a deep-dive analysis of the company’s business model and industry position, interviewing company management and financial experts, building complex financial models to determine the stock’s intrinsic value, and compiling an “Initiation of Coverage” report with a buy, sell or hold recommendation.
“Participating in the CFA Research Challenge allows our students to bridge the gap between classroom theory and the fast-paced world of investment management,” said Dr. Hu. “It demands a level of rigor and professional ethics that prepares them for the highest levels of the finance industry.”
The team will presented its findings and defended its recommendation before a panel of judges from leading investment firms at the CFA Society local final in late February. Winners of the local competition will advance to the subregional and regional rounds, with the goal of reaching the global finals in May 2026.
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The UK’s financial regulator should consider expanding its oversight to cover advanced artificial intelligence models used in financial services, according to a review commissioned by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), as policymakers assess whether existing rules can keep pace with rapidly evolving AI technology.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the city state’s central bank and financial regulator, has joined forces with major financial institutions and FinTechs to release a white paper aimed at keeping AI agents in finance operating within safe limits.
The paper, called Safeguards for Agentic Finance at Runtime (SAFR), lays out an industry-built framework designed to let AI agents perform financial tasks in a manner that is safe, secure and dependable. It has been produced under BuildFin.ai, the MAS programme that backs the responsible creation and rollout of AI tools across the financial sector.
The push comes as AI agents take on more autonomous work at a pace that makes hands-on human oversight impractical. In response, firms require real-time controls that keep agent behaviour inside the mandates, policies and risk limits they have defined. SAFR answers this with a series of governance checkpoints that check and log each action an agent proposes before that task is carried out.
The framework extends the AI Risk Management toolkit created through MAS’ Project Mindforge, concentrating on how protections can be put into practice at the moment an agent acts. The white paper maps out how measures such as policy bound execution, real time validation, auditability and interoperability can be woven into system operations, giving institutions the confidence to deploy agents consistently.
Industry participants have already tested SAFR in several settings. These include agent-assisted payments and treasury work, where agents handle routine transactions inside set mandates to cut friction and lift efficiency; wealth management and advisory processes, where agents examine documents and produce structured assessments within tightly defined task limits to speed up compliance reviews; and client engagement, where agents create insights and draft materials within approved content boundaries so staff can serve clients more productively.
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Talking about finances can be stressful, but it’s even more stressful if you’re not sure what advice is good and what advice might put you in a worse position than you started in.
Recently, a Reddit user who goes by market_vision1 asked, “What is the worst financial advice people still repeat?” I took out a little pen and paper while I was reading through these, like, “Lemme write that down. And that. Oh! And that, too!” I’m curious what you think, though. Are all of these things we should avoid financially?
1. “One of the more damaging ideas out there is ‘Oh, you’re young, don’t worry about money, just go have fun and worry about it when you are older.’ Of course, the number one regret I hear from clients nearing retirement is that they wish they had just started saving when they were younger.”
—u/hems86
2. “The ‘tax bracket’ myth should be illegal. My uncle turned down a $10K raise because he thought he’d ‘lose money.’ He literally paid $10,000 to avoid $2,200 in taxes. That’s not a tax strategy. That’s a $7,800 donation to the Dumba— Fund, and he’s the chair.”
—u/Serious_Cress5040
Related: “31 Things Only Super Wealthy People Can Buy That You Probably Don’t Even Know Exist”
3. “People living outside of their means and not realizing it. They say things like, ‘You deserve X, don’t settle for less.’ Most of the people I see who are broke are not 100% victims of the system. The majority of people waste their money on dumb stuff that they can’t afford. They’ll tell me they’ve cut out all unnecessary spending, but when I look at their actual expenses, I see otherwise. Spending $800 a month on DoorDash, financing a new car with a $900 monthly payment, going on international vacations, spending 70% of their income on rent in a fancier apartment when there are options for cheaper living.”
—u/hems86
4. “I’m a financial planner, and some of the worst advice I’ve ever heard is ‘Don’t pay off your credit cards in full. Carrying a balance on your credit card builds your credit; paying it off every month hurts your score.’ People say this to me all the time when I ask why they carry a balance on their card with 25% interest when they have more than enough to pay it off.”
—u/hems86
5. “It’s not so much advice as it is a financial choice. I know people who are taking out 96-month loans on cars they never should’ve considered in the first place, just because they can make the car note when it’s stretched over eight years. They never considered the interest on the loan plus the rate cars depreciate and are befuddled when they can’t afford to trade it in.”
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