A giant digital stock ticker calls to the student managers of Bryant University’s $2.6 million Archway Investment Fund — as they head into their “Portfolio Management” course, held in Bryant’s new Financial Markets Center. With a stream of company names, numbers, arrows, and colors, the ticker tells the story of the day: what stocks are up, what stocks are down, and — if you can read the tea leaves — the shape of the world.

The ticker is more than a billboard, though; it’s a sort of gateway. The watchword for the FMC — an experiential learning laboratory equipped with industry-leading analytical tools — is “immersion,” notes Kevin Maloney, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Finance department.

As soon as they enter, the portfolio managers are met with a surge of information. In one corner, a screen playing CNBC silently lays out the financial issues of the day in real time, from geopolitical unrest to investor expectations to the looming specter of industry-redefining artificial intelligence. In another corner, a display offers up-to-the-minute performance stats for the 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

In the center of the room, they find professors ready to guide them, surrounded by the tools they need to analyze the larger messages within the flashing abbreviations and indicators. They head to their dual-monitor workstations, which are equipped with software including FactSet, MCSI ESG and Morningstar, that provide large amounts of data and sophisticated analytical tools; Bloomberg Terminals, powerful machines used on trading floors all over the world, blink real-time news, data, and analytics at their backs.

The portfolio managers learn to work these instruments like conductors, but the true test comes in how they use them: to deftly maneuver in a complex and rapidly changing market, develop investment strategies, and capitalize on every opportunity.

“I really love having access to all of the lab’s resources” says Natalie Sims ’25, a member of Archway’s EMU (Energy, Materials, Utilities) sector team. “Gaining that practical understanding of what we’re going to be doing once we graduate has been really valuable for me.”

The hub
Prior to joining the Bryant faculty, Maloney held leadership roles at Gottex Fund Management and Putnam Investments. He knows what it takes to succeed in the finance industry, and he’s made it his mission to prepare his students to excel in a data-rich field affected by rapid advances in technology.

Maloney was instrumental in helping to design the FMC, as well as the surrounding Business Entrepreneurship Leadership Center. Built to order, the lab encourages experimentation, says Maloney, who notes the center is also available for students to use outside of class to work on projects, conduct research, or even manage their own portfolios.

Maloney is especially proud of how the FMC serves as a central hub for the entire Finance department, whose faculty are all located in offices less than 50 yards away

“Our actions have real-world consequences. That helps us prepare for whatever we want to do in the future."

“One of the design philosophies of the BELC building was that the spaces should provide seamless ways for students and faculty to interact. Learning doesn't just take place in an hour and 15-minute class. It spills out into the hallways. It happens in faculty members’ offices,” he explains, which were intentionally sited near their respective lab spaces.

In effect, Maloney suggests, the FMC extends throughout the entire wing of the building.

Prepping for the future
As managers of the Archway Investment Fund, Bryant students are responsible for a three-fund investment portfolio — equity, fixed income, and digital innovation — valued together at around $3.5 million.

“Our actions have real-world consequences,” says Garrett Schimmell ’25. “That helps us prepare for whatever we want to do in the future.”

In 2025, the AIF will celebrate its 20th anniversary, and, with the new Financial Markets Center, it’s poised to reach new heights.  

In today’s “Portfolio Management” course, Maloney takes Schimmell and his peers in the equity fund through options strategies, a financial mechanism that allows investors to purchase the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an asset at a set price before the option expires.

Options strategies can be useful as risk management tools, says Maloney, noting the recent antitrust lawsuit against Google, which briefly hurt the stock price of its parent company, Alphabet, Inc. Other strategies involve short-term speculation, that “at times can be like trying to pick up nickels in front of a steamroller,” he advises.

For the first half of the session, Maloney walks the class through covered calls, put options, strangles, straddles, and other strategies. “These are just potential strategies,” Maloney reminds the students. “Whether or not you want to use them is up to you; you’re the ones managing your section of the portfolio.”

With the lesson over, Maloney reinforces that message by asking the sector teams to consider how they might apply what they’ve learned to the stocks held in their portion of the portfolio. The students, working in groups, pull up FactSet, a software platform that provides instant access to financial data and analytics.

Both Maloney and Professor of Finance John Fellingham, Ph.D., who also teaches in the Archway program, visit each sector team, asking questions and offering points of consideration, but allowing them to make their own decisions.

The students then dive into the assignment, checking info, debating potential moves, and considering possibilities. There’s an extra energy to their work, they note, because their actions have consequences for the returns of the portfolio. “The market grades their work every day and compounds those results over time. There are no makeup exams,” notes Maloney.

For Sims, being entrusted with that responsibility makes Archway a learning experience like no other. “It’s empowering,” she says. And having Bryant’s entire Finance community to collaborate with makes it even better.