By ryan April 9, 2001
The Ivy League Investment Club Conference started, incidentally, as a joint venture between Cornell and Harvard universities. High school friends Scott Belsky ’02 and Fan Wu, a junior at Harvard — now the presidents of their respective investment clubs — arranged the conference that would bring together delegates from each of the Ivy League universities to talk shop. With investment firm Goldman Sachs leading the charge, the 56 delegates toured the trading floors of the New York Stock Exchange, heard from speakers across the industry and sat down with each other to compare ideas. “I was realizing that a lot of what we do we didn’t know how to do it,” Belsky said. “There are all these clubs that are at different stages of involvement.” For instance, he noted, while Cornell’s club members invest their own money, student investors at Dartmouth use part of the school’s endowment. “I realized there’s a lot of potential for collaboration,” he said. The delegates heard from Goldman Sachs’ team Friday morning, with workshops beginning at 6:45 a.m. Rick Sherland ’77, who recently made the cover of Fortune magazine as “one of the smartest guys on Wall Street,” talked about picking stocks. “You want to catch the big wave; you want to catch it early and just ride it out,” Sherlund said. “Generally you want to look at the rate of growth, and the confidence you have that a company can meet those growth rate expectations. What’s happened in the past is irrelevant; it’s what’s going to happen that’s important.” Sherlund singled out Microsoft as an example of a big wave, noting, “You know it when you see it.” The conference, Belsky pointed out, was receiving coverage from The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal because of timing — in the aftermath of the recent economic slowdown. “It’s a positive note to a pretty sad current status,” he said. “You can take advantage of the market, no matter where the economy is,” Charles Baldridge ’01 added. Lisa Fontinelli, a vice president with Goldman Sachs, talked about the importance of disseminating information across the industry. “This is about the quick and dirty,” she said. “We’re not in the ivory tower; we do try to make money here. This sort of flies in the face of what you think of this business.” For that reason, the most important job an analyst has is asking managers the difficult questions and then listening hard to their answers, Fontinelli said. Belsky contacted Joshua Benjamin ’99, a former president of Cornell’s Investment Club, who put him in touch with the people at Goldman Sachs. “From Goldman’s standpoint, all of the delegates are qualified candidates; we used it partly as a recruitment tool,” said Benjamin, now a financial analyst in the equities division. “We got about 95 percent right. I think next year, we’re going to have a little bit more break time. We’re going to focus more on specific portfolio examples. There’ll be more interaction,” Benjamin said. Goldman Sachs wanted to be the sole sponsor of the conference, which included a panel discussion from recent Ivy League graduates now working with the company. Cornell also participated by offering discount accommodations at the Cornell Club. “We’re requiring each investment club to bring at least two freshmen or sophomores. The definite goal is to meet every year,” Belsky said before the conference. Goldman Sachs managing director Jack Kelly urged the delegates not to get too focused on “the business side of things.” “College is a great time, really enjoy it. I think that at the end of the day, wherever you are, what you want to get out of it is that they thought you how to think,” he said. “If you completely believe the academics, you wouldn’t invest in anything.” Joel Golovin ’01 noted that networking and career-building were a big part of the conference. “We have top management reps telling us from their life experiences. We can gain a lot from them, learn from their mistakes,” he said. Archived article by Beth Herskovits
By ryan April 9, 2001
Junior netminder Justin Cynar’s most important save was his first save of the game. Harvard (4-3, 0-2 Ivy) won the opening faceoff and managed to penetrate Cornell’s defense thereby launching the ball at Cynar’s ankles. The All-American caught a piece of the rubber with his foot, and the ball bounced harmlessly over the lacrosse cage. Cornell (5-2, 3-0 Ivy) was able to acquire possession after the botched Crimson scoring attempt. Senior tri-captain Drew Schart passed to classmate David Key, who broke the only tie of the game, putting Cornell ahead 1-0 with just over 59 minutes to go. “I thought that [the first save] gave us the momentum and confidence to go off on a stretch of our own,” head coach Jeff Tambroni praised. No. 14 Cornell extended its winning streak to three games, and along with Princeton, is undefeated in conference games after Saturday’s 16-3 routing of Harvard. Harvard came into the game off an upset of then No. 11 Duke that saw the Crimson climbing in the national polls. Goaltender, Jake McKenna was awarded Ivy League Rookie of the week honors as he kept the Blue Devils to six goals. In its most satisfying win of the season, the Red finally mounted a full game effort against up-and-coming Harvard. Led by Key, who had seven goals and two assists, Cornell spread its scoring over all four quarters and never allowed the Crimson to muster a comeback. “Coach has been talking all year about putting a full 60 minutes together, and we hadn’t done that all season. And today’s the day we did it,” Key said. As usual the Red jumped out to a first quarter lead, 4-0. It wasn’t until 7:38 into the second period when Dana Sprong beat Cynar on a pass from Roger Buttles decreasing the scoring differential to 8-1. Normally a seven goal lead would give enough insurance to any team, but not the Red who had seen Yale close a 10-1 gap to a one-goal game. But that fear was never realized. Cornell ended the first thirty minutes with two consecutive goals sending them into halftime 10-1. During the break, the men vowed that they wouldn’t see their nine goal lead disappear as it had in previous games. “Why were these teams coming back against us?” asked junior Galen Beers about the Red’s second half lapses. “That was initiative in itself. No more second half slumps, let’s just get to the end of the game.” There was no let down after the half as the Red augmented its already commanding lead. Sophomore Frank Sands pushed the Harvard deficit into double-digits 22 seconds into the third quarter. Key found the cage three more times single-handedly scoring as many goals on McKenna as the Duke team did. The Red attack took advantage of a comprehensive scouting report on the rookie between the pipes who stopped only 10 of 25 shots. He was pulled in favor of Ely Kahn with 10 minutes left. Kahn let in the only shot he faced. Meanwhile, the defense had its way with the Harvard attack. Senior Brandon Hall held Matt Primm, coming back from an injury, to no points. Contributions from sophomore Ryan McClay added to the steady defense. “When you come [to Schoellkopf field] you’re facing a bear,” Beers commented. “It felt good to take it to them for four quarters, and as coach would say, ‘Not let them sniff it.'” Although Cynar faced only 11 shots on the day, he saved nine of them, increasing his save percentage and lowering his goals against average. But the unparalleled star of the game was Key. The senior, who has taken on much of the scoring burden this year, totaled nine points on seven goals and two assists doubling his Ivy league totals. “He happened to be in the right place at the right time.” Tambroni explained further, “The move to attack has given him a lot of chances to put the ball in the back of the cage, and he has done that.” Beers extended his scoring streak to seven games on two goals and an assist. Sophomore Michael Egan had the second highest point total with three goals and an assist. More importantly for Tambroni was the hustle that went into the Red’s win. Neither Cornell nor Harvard had lost a game in which it retrieved more than half of the ground balls. The 28 of 46 ground balls that Cornell collected were indicative of the final score. Junior Addison Sollog won 14 of the 23 faceoffs to bolster that number. “Today was for our team to get off on the right start and continue to grow as the game went on,” Tambroni said. While the Red put in a full effort in beating the Ivy rival, it is fair to say that part of the game was a test for the highly anticipated contest against national powerhouse Syracuse tomorrow. Last year the Orange suffered its sole loss of the season at Schoellkopf. Tomorrow, Tambroni will lead his men into the Carrier Dome. “I think this win gives our team confidence [toward Syracuse],” asserted Tambroni.Archived article by Amanda Angel