What is the SMF Core Capstone Project?

Depending on the track that you take (either corporate finance or investment management), the Core Capstone project can look a little bit different. For the corporate track, you go through a valuation of a company through a corporate perspective. For the investment management track, the end deliverable is also a valuation but also a Buy/Sell/Hold rating.

Each student forms teams of five people and they get to choose one company in the S&P 500 to value. Then, once a week during the second session, there are group meetings with either Professor Sheridan or Professor Pinteris to make sure that each group is on track to meeting the final deadline. There are no concrete class meeting times so this gives each of us an opportunity to gain some real-world experience by working on a project that we can discuss in future interviews. This project is a highlight of the semester and gives us all an opportunity to work in groups and leverage what we are individually good at while also improving from each other in the areas we lack.

We also get to utilize everything that we have learned all semester to this one project. My group decided to go through a valuation for Tesla. I learned so much about the valuation process and all the extensive research that goes into it. Professor Sheridan was such a huge help to learn from and I would feel so much more confident going through this process again now that I have done it.

Now that we have turned in our final report and gave our final 15-minute presentations, it feels so great to be ready for the rest of finals and finish this first semester strong. This program really does fly by and this project is a great way to measure how far we have come and it is so fun to see the different viewpoints and strategies used by other groups. My group was fortunate enough to be selected by our professors as the best overall team with our equity research report and presentation on Tesla! I cannot wait for what the next semester brings!