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CNBC Fast Money MBA Challenge
By Michael Lundberg | August 23, 2007
I used to listen to CNBC Squwak Box regularly in the morning via Sirius Satellite Radio. I stopped a while back, because while I do invest in the stock market (post MBA, I invest in index funds only) I’m not really a stock trader. Sure, CNBC’s got some entertaining shows like Mad Money with Jim Cramer, but in general, CNBC in the morning just stresses me out. It makes me feel like I’ve got to execute some desperate trades as soon as I get into the office. When I first saw the CNBC Fast Money MBA Challenge, I thought phhfft…. whatever…. and then I realized that my MBA alma mater, University of Texas’ McCombs School of Business was one of the participants. That’s when it got interesting for me.
In total, there were 8 participating schools. I couldn’t find any information about how CNBC selected the schools for this contest. The schools are:
- MIT Sloan School of Management
- NYU Stern School of Business
- McCombs School of Business, the University of Texas at Austin
- Columbia Business School
- Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth
- UCLA Anderson School of Management
- University of Chicago, GSB
- Yale School of Management
It was really good to see McCombs included in such a prestigious group of schools for at least two reasons. First, it’s where I got my MBA and it’s always good to see your school get promoted, because it increases the value of your degree. Second, it was one of two public schools (along with UCLA) included in the contest. I certainly don’t want to take anything away from private schools or those that attend them, but I do believe that public schools can offer just as much as private schools can. I definitely know this to be the case with the University of Texas.
The Texas Longhorns were able to defeat MIT Sloan in the first round two weeks ago. We might not have won that one, except that MIT got their final question wrong, which gave UT all the time they needed to answer their question correctly, winning the final round of questions and the match.
A week later, the Longhorns (now called by the host, Dylan Ratigan, to be the “Cinderella” story team), kept their cool under pressure and were able to defeat Columbia in the second bracket.
Which leads us to last night’s match against Yale, for all the glory. Oh, and there was also a measly $200K in prize money to be shared among the winning team for school expenses. The Longhorns started strong out of the gate, earning a commanding lead over Yale. But Yale didn’t falter, and they slowly gained it back to even out the score. Once again, the final round of questioning proved to be the decision maker. Yale got their question correct. UT did not. But this didn’t completely seal their fate because the 2nd half of the final competition was a stock portfolio challenge. Each team created a a 5 stock portfolio, selected by each team at the beginning of the competition. The winner of the first round, Yale, was given a 10% advantage in the portfolio challenge. Sadly, Yale proved to be a better stock picker and they ultimately won the competition.
You can see the defeat here.
I enjoyed the competition more due to the fact that UT was winning. I don’t feel that the questions were any kind of test of the knowledge earned while in MBA school. The questions were mostly trivia and sometimes not even business trivia. I have to admit, it was fun while it lasted. Look at the bright side, the Yale students probably needed the money more than the McCombs students, anyway. After all, Yale is a private school.
Hook ‘em!
Topics: University of Texas, Money |