Suffolk University finance and investing club dives into spring semester with an additional $200,000 to go into effect in Suffolk’s Tremont Fund for the 2025-2026 school year after a successful presentation to the Investment Committee Dec. 2, 2024.
Four finance club students, President Michael Olivieri, Chief Marketing Officer Zena Fitzgerald, Chief Investment Officer Keith Chafe and Chairman Cole Keeler, crafted a presentation detailing the club’s accomplishments, future plans and day-to-day operations which they successfully brought forth toward the Investment Committee.
The Tremont Fund itself was founded in May 2022, beginning with $200,000 provided by Suffolk. The fund acts as an experiential learning opportunity for students to become equity analysts, giving them hands-on experience with investing and researching.
The club is broken into two parts, according to Olivieri. One is bringing in people from the financial industry to speak on their day-to-day experiences and how they got to where they are now. The other is managing the Tremont Fund.
“Students can apply to be analysts (for the Tremond Fund) and have the opportunity to manage real money and funds. We invest it only in US stocks and the profits go back to students in scholarships,” said Olivieri.
With this hands-on experience, the competitiveness of Suffolk finance student’s applications has been heightened.
“When we went to Chicago for a finance event, some schools had over a million dollars in their fund. It’s good for job applications as well. [Olivieri] is returning to Fidelity for an internship this summer and the club has given us a lot of opportunities,” said Fitzgerald.
Other members have worked or interned at RBC Capital, Morgan Stanley, Commonwealth Financial Network and Wells Fargo.
Other schools have large funds that operate similarly to the Tremont Fund. The additional funding given by Suffolk is a step forward in creating alignment with the larger school’s student-led investment funds. According to Olivieri, the Tremont Fund is all student-run.
“We manage the money completely ourselves. Our biggest holdings are T-Mobile, Goldman Sachs, Apple, Nvidia, Google and more. We want to double our holdings with the additional $200,000. We manage against the S&P 500, the broader stock market, so we will be more neutral to that to take some risk off of the table,” said Olivieri.
While the fund has been an important vessel for the finance club, Chafe believes that it is the gift that keeps giving back to the Suffolk community.
“The goal of the fund is eventually to sell our positions and give that back to the school for scholarships,” said Chafe.
The finance club continues to make plans for additional funding in the Tremont Fund, looking towards establishing a fixed income sector, an asset class designed to protect capital.
“We can use it for experiential learning and possibly things we set up that could be used as the grounds for a fixed-income class,” said Chafe.
The finance club continues to average around 40 students per meeting, with consistent social media and website updates, according to Fitzgerald.
“I’ve missed less club meetings than classes throughout my entire career here at Suffolk. This club is all about pushing each other to be better and succeed after Suffolk. It’s a lot of generous people who donate a lot of time that they’re not being paid for,” said Olivieri.
