What is LAM?
Laker Asset Management (LAM) is an investment organization affiliated with the main campus of Mercyhurst University located in Erie, Pennsylvania. With roughly 30 consistently active members, LAM meets on a weekly basis throughout the school year to discuss market news, trends in the markets, development of research to improve our portfolio, and discuss trade opportunities to help improve our portfolio.
Photo by Hurst Hawk
In October of 2017, LAM was approved the allowance of managing $100,000 of the University’s endowment under the supervision of both the advisor and the University Endowment Committee. In mid-November of 2019, LAM Board Members were granted an additional $100,000 to manage in addition to the original allocation. Today, members, analysts, and interested students alike meet on a weekly basis to earn hands-on experience with managing the allocated funds.
The purpose of LAM is to educate young students and aspiring investors on how the market works and what it takes to manage investments in the real world. With teams within the organization developing research on certain themes that members are interested in, the teams propose educated recommendations on what they advise the general population of members to approve or deny. The approval or veto is ultimately decided by the board members: a group of three to seven upperclassmen students elected to represent LAM in deciding what goes in and out of the portfolio. Meet the team of Board Members on our Members page.
With being affiliated with Mercyhurst University, Laker Asset Management is included as a part of the Recognized Student Club and Organizations (RSCO). Per requirements of participating in RSCO, LAM has their constitution posted on the Constitution page, which includes the structure of the organization, how officers are elected, and how trades are made. Any questions may be forwarded to the Contact Us page, if necessary.
Investing Strategies
LAM uses a “thematic” investing strategy when searching for new topics to research. In this strategy, there are three parts:
- Brainstorm a theme. The theme will be the overall idea of the research that will be developed through the entirety of the time spent on the subject.
- Break the theme down into sectors. This will narrow down all of the options within the theme to focus on a specific group of publicly traded companies, ETFs, or mutual funds.
- Choose a package of individual stocks, ETFs, or mutual funds to research. The third step involves the most in-depth research, and these declare is what will be chosen when it comes time to make a buy.
The “thematic” approach has been used in numerous cases in the past, including all of the themes shown on the Portfolio page. Click the different subcategories to check out what really went on for the research!