The work
Fundamentals teams research businesses, sectors and investment opportunities to build and manage portfolios. Each team is responsible for its portfolio throughout the academic year, including positions held over term breaks. The focus is identifying attractive opportunities, deciding position sizes and understanding how individual holdings fit into the wider portfolio.
Research that drives decisions
Research should lead to a clear investment decision. Develop well-sourced theses covering the valuation, catalysts, expected holding period, key risks and the conditions that would change or invalidate the view. Track holdings as new information emerges, update the thesis when the investment case changes and, when a position is closed, review the outcome against the original reasoning.
Portfolio construction goes beyond individual stock selection. Teams should consider sector concentration, liquidity, short exposure, drawdowns and execution costs when deciding how much risk to take. The aim is to use research not only to find opportunities, but also to determine how those opportunities should be sized within the portfolio.
Working with Execution
Fundamentals teams send formal order tickets to their assigned Execution desk. The investment team owns the instrument, direction, quantity, price limit and urgency; Execution decides how to work the order within those instructions. Every session order follows this route, and Fundamentals portfolios do not trade options.
Execution assignments rotate each term. Holdings continue across the year, while requests to reduce positions during a term break follow the separate approval process.
How performance is measured
The score combines risk-adjusted returns (55%), net profit and loss (25%) and capital deployment (20%). The headline result uses performance across the full year, including term breaks. Research and risk reviews support learning and are not scored as subjective prediction contests.
Who this suits
Students who enjoy understanding companies, reading evidence, working with numbers and explaining an investment argument clearly. No coding is required; curiosity, sound reasoning and willingness to change a view are central to the work.
Team structure
8 teams · 8 members per team · 64 members total
- Portfolio Manager — 1 per team
- Fundamental Analyst — 7 per team