The 2011 Q1 SIAS Performance Review presentation held at the Metropolitan Hotel on May 27 focused on the past quarter, future outlook, and also featured keynote speaker Margaret Franklin, Chair of the Board of Governors of the CFA Institute and President and CEO of Kinsale Private Wealth.

The SIAS team began the presentation by reporting on the fund’s performance and risk attributes for the first three months of 2011. The SIAS Fund returned 3.08% for the first quarter and was 42 basis points above the benchmark. The positive results are due to each of the asset classes beating the benchmark with returns of 6.35%, 2.87% and 0.41% for Canadian Equity, Global Equity and Fixed Income respectively. The portfolio benefited from being underweight in Japan and Europe for the Global portfolio, overweight in financials and energy for the Canadian portfolio, and overweight short term bonds for the Fixed Income portfolio.

There were two major economic events that occurred in the first quarter: the Japanese earthquake and the turmoil in the Middle East. The team spoke about how these specific events, in conjunction with the continuing European sovereign debt crisis, affected the portfolio. In addition, they highlighted the executed Canadian trades and discussed the rebalancing of the US portfolio.

After the presentation, the SIAS team hosted a Q&A session for the executive panel. Here, they addressed the portfolio risks, expectations on commodities and the fixed income strategy. Master of Financial Risk Management (MFRM) student, Simon Hutchison also highlighted the team’s success at UBC’s National Investment Banking Competition (NIBC), University of Dayton’s Redefining Investment Strategy Education (R.I.S.E) Challenge and the CFA’s Global Investment Research Challenge (GIRC). This was followed by an inspiring keynote by Margaret Franklin, recently named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women.

The event concluded with a wine and cheese networking reception for students and industry professionals. Overall, the event offered a wonderful opportunity for Vancouver’s finance community to learn more about SFU Beedie’s student-run fund and an opportunity to meet the future leaders in finance.

To learn more about the SIAS Fund, please click here. To view photos of past presentations, please visit the SIAS Fund’s Facebook page.