Thirty-five students are broadening their business acumen as part of the inaugural class of a new specialization in value investing offered at Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business.
Photo by Bruce Gilbert
“This investment methodology is taught at the graduate level at a sampling of universities nationwide, but Fordham University offers a specialization in value investing for undergraduate business students,” said James Russell Kelly, M.B.A., lecturer in finance, who developed and is teaching the first course of the three-course specialization, Introduction to Value Investing, this semester.
The course includes a series of guest lectures by Wall Street guru Bruce Greenwald, Ph.D., director of The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing at Columbia Business School and co-author of Value Investing: From Graham to Buffet and Beyond” (Wiley Finance, 2001).
Value investing was developed in the 1930s by professors Benjamin Graham and David Dodd of Columbia Business School. Unlike conventional security analysis, the methodology is based on a detailed analysis of a company’s current and historical balance sheet, income and cash flow statements.
Kelly explained that what makes value investing unique is that “it doesn’t rely on future earnings, but rather evaluates a company’s current assets and liabilities, and its historical performance.” In the introductory course, students are learning to identify and analyze undervalued securities “which provide a significant margin of safety to their intrinsic value.”
Among those who have built successful careers by applying the principles of value investing are Warren Buffet and Mario Gabelli, the school’s namesake.
To complete the value investing specialization, students are required to take two additional courses, Behavioral Finance, and Advanced Topics in Value Investing, to be offered in the fall of 2012 and spring of 2013.
To further formalize the study of value investing, plans are underway to establish a Gabelli Chair in Global Value Investing in the tradition of Graham & Dodd, (Roger) Murray and Greenwald. The school will fill the position sometime this year.
—Claire Curry
