FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 7, 2008
Contact: Joshua Hollis
(662) 329-7119

MUW’s TVA Investment Club earns $3,000 in 2007

COLUMBUS, Miss. – The Tennessee Valley Authority Investment Club at Mississippi University for Women won an award of $3,000 for its performance in 2007, bringing the club’s award total to $43,000 since 2001.

Dr. Joyce Hunt, interim dean of the College of Business, said, “We are extremely proud of our students and their faculty advisory team, Dr. Glenn Rhyne and Mr. Scott Tollison.”

Rhyne, professor of economics, has served as the club’s director since 2001. Tollison, an MIS instructor, has assisted with the club for the last two years.

To win, Rhyne said students must “outperform the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index and the other universities over the year from January through December. Each school develops and manages a portfolio of actual stocks . . . [and] buys and sells stocks on the New York Stock Exchange. The schools with the highest return on their investments are the winners.”

Currently, MUW’s TVA Investment Club has 27 stocks in its portfolio at a value of approximately $400,000.

Rhyne said TVA provided the seed money to start their investments and the club has “increased the value of our investments to over $800,000. However, TVA decided to reduce the holdings of each university by 50 percent.” TVA has said it will use the money in the future to retire its nuclear plants.

The TVA Club meets about every two weeks on Tuesdays to evaluate their portfolio of stocks, and decide whether to buy or sell those stocks. Rhyne said the club manages the portfolio in the same manner as investment firms.

“Over the last three years,” said Rhyne, “Our club has had the fifth highest annual return of approximately 11 percent. This is above the overall market average return and above the average for investment firms.”

The club uses its winnings to support MUW and the College of Business. It used the money to take two trips to New York to visit the Federal Reserve Bank, where students visited the vault containing billions of dollars of gold. The club also visited the New York Stock Exchange. The club sponsored a dinner for the victims of Hurricane Katrina who lived on campus a few years ago. The club also co-sponsored economic conferences with the Columbus-Lowndes LINK, as well as a leadership conference on campus for MUW and the city of Columbus.

The TVA Investment Club competes against 24 other universities, including Mississippi State, Ole Miss, University of Alabama and Vanderbilt.