Funding a Passion for the Markets

Students are often taught about the markets and investing in a classroom setting, but what if they could be given money and guided on how to invest as if in a real-world setting? 

When David Rabalais ’26 was in high school in The Woodlands, Texas, he spotted an opportunity created by the Covid-19 pandemic.

With students attending classes online, many of his peers were having trouble navigating math and science. So, David decided to tutor students in subjects he had already covered.

“During my final year, I helped about 50 students with subjects like Algebra 2 and AP chemistry,” says David, who is now a sophomore finance major at Texas A&M and is also part of the business honors program. “I worked 30 to 35 hours every single week. And when I graduated high school, I had made $30,000 in profit from that business.”

During this time, David had also developed an interest in markets, but he did not want to ask his parents for money to invest. “I moved from Vietnam when I was 8 years old, and my mom was a really frugal person — which I really respect her for. If a shirt cost $30 she would remind me that I can find a comparable shirt that is on sale for $10. Growing up, I never wanted expensive toys or new phones. My mom taught me the value of saving.”

Now, he invested half the profits from his tutoring business and, though he lost a fifth of it to the bear market, learned valuable lessons on making financial choices. And it helped him with his application to Texas A&M.

“There is no substitute to having to face an investing decision when you have your own money at stake,” says Professor Sorin Sorescu, the director of the Adam C. Sinn ’00 Center for Investment Management at Mays Business School. “You cannot teach this in a classroom.”

Professor Sorescu says students like David are lucky to be part of a program where they face real-world investing decisions every day. “Prospective employers like hedge funds are not looking for students who have made the right investing decision all the time. They know investors make mistakes. They want to know how students approached the decision and what they learned from it. Our aim is to give the students a laboratory to learn from their mistakes.”

One of these laboratories is the Reveille Fund, an investment fund where students manage capital in a real-world environment on behalf of the The University of Texas/Texas A&M Investment Management company (UTIMCO). The Reveille Fund began in 2021 when UTIMCO allocated $7.5 million to Texas A&M and The University of Texas for student-managed investment funds. Both universities manage this fund in competition, and the group that has better returns is awarded the UTIMCO Cup.

Students manage the Reveille Fund like anybody else on Wall Street would be managing a fund, and they are accountable just the same way, says Brent (B.R.) Adams ’89, an executive professor of finance at Mays Business School, who oversees the fund. Adams doesn’t look at the Reveille Fund as a course; rather, he sees it as a full-time job. “We have no idea what the financial environment, Wall Street or the world is going to look like 10, 20, 30 years out, but we want to give you the tools so that whatever your path is, you’ll be prepared to succeed,” he said.

When they sign up for the Reveille Fund program, students are assigned a sector to cover, which they track on an hourly basis and pitch ideas for investments. “What we learn in classes is always based on what is happening in the market, so there is no real structure,” says Colton Morraine ’24, pursuing a major in business honors and finance. “Some classes are student-led discussions on diverse subjects like AI, commodities, and tech. Other times, Professor Adams will throw a lot of thoughts and scenarios and challenge us to think about handling uncertainty and what investment decisions we would make.”

To complement the Reveille Fund, students will soon have access to the Sinn Fund — thanks to the generosity of Aggie graduate and Aspire Commodities owner Adam Sinn ’00.

“We were fortunate to receive a $4 million donation from Adam Sinn for a student-managed fund,” says Professor Sorescu, who hopes students will have access to this fund in the next academic year.

“Unlike the Reveille Fund, where we act as investment managers and manage UTIMCO’s money, the Sinn Fund has almost no restrictions. If students have a new idea for a fund, they can apply just like they would in the real world and, if approved, they could start a hedge fund. We want to offer students the ability to build their own track record.

“And I don’t think there is any fund in the U.S. that allows college students to do that.”