The student leaders of the Archway Investment Fund have had their hands full this year riding the unpredictable ups and downs of the stock market and government policy. But that’s nothing new for a Bryant experiential learning program that also has weathered economic downturns like the 2008-'09 subprime mortgage crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic of the early 2020s.

Founded in 2005, the Archway Investment Fund provides students with the opportunity to manage an investment portfolio following principles used by financial professionals. 

Led by an executive committee, Archway includes equity and fixed income portfolios and a separate Digital Innovation Fund. Equity fund managers are organized into seven market sector teams: consumer, communication services, energy, materials, and utilities (EMU), financial and real estate (FIRE), healthcare, industrial, and technology. 

The fixed-income managers are assigned to a macro team, a yield curve team, an investment grade corporate team, a high yield team, a securitized credit team, and an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) team.

Archway was launched with an initial equity investment of $200,000; when a fixed-income portfolio was created in 2017, an additional $500,000 was invested. As of May 2025, the total fund value stands at $3.3 million. 

“Since inception we've added $2.4 million worth of market value,” explains Kevin Maloney, Ph.D., chair of Bryant’s Finance department and an Archway faculty advisor. “The equity fund has performed broadly in line with the S&P 500, slightly below over time. They've been ahead for this year. Fixed income is almost exactly on its benchmarks: slightly ahead for the longer term, and flat for this year."

In addition to recommending individual investment purchases and determining how much weight should be allocated to each investment sector, student managers help determine the fund’s balance between equity and fixed-income investments — broadly defined as stocks and bonds. 

Typically, the goal is to maintain roughly a 70/30 split between the two, says Maloney, although Archway entered 2025 slightly overweighted, at about 72 percent, toward equity investments. 

In February 2025, student leaders made the decision to rebalance the fund to 70/30 by selling stocks and putting the proceeds into bonds — a call that proved prescient when the Trump administration’s imposition of steep tariffs on imports led to a sharp decline in the stock market in early April. 

Going into the summer, students reviewed the asset allocation decision and again adjusted the portfolios back to a 70/30 split because the market has recovered most of its losses sustained earlier in the year, Maloney says. “Each team also developed contingency plans that included limit orders and stop loss trades in the equity portfolio, and a set of market triggers for rebalancing the fixed income risk exposures if needed," he adds.

The need to put the portfolio on “autopilot” for the summer is one big difference between Archway and a commercial investment fund. Unlike managers and analysts for companies like Fidelity or Morningstar, Bryant students aren’t full-time employees; their roles are tied to their coursework, specifically enrollment in "Securities Analysis" and "Equity Fund Portfolio Management" for those on the equity side of the fund and "Debt Securities, Derivatives and Investing" and "Fixed Income Fund Portfolio Management" for those working with the fixed-income portfolio.

Participation in Archway is open to anyone who takes the prerequisite classes. "You need to interview to get into the Archway Equity class," Maloney notes, but, "No interviews are required for the Fixed Income Archway class or Digital Innovation Fund."

The 2024-25 school year has been a challenge for Archway student leaders, says Sam Banoud ’26, an Archway executive committee member and communications sector analyst.

“With the new administration and all the economic uncertainty, it was very tough pitching a new stock because we were expecting a growth administration,” he says. “We bought Omnicom (OMC), an advertising agency, right away and growth policies have not materialized, so we just had to switch gears. We learned how to adapt throughout the semester and took a more defensive posture, cutting our shares in Omnicom and Comcast (CMCSA)and bought Verizon (VZ), and it's doing well.”

“With the new administration and all the economic uncertainty, it was very tough pitching a new stock because we were expecting a growth administration."

Archway students were also able to turn some losses into wins. 

“We pitched [multinational investment company] BlackRock (BLK) this semester and our target price was $1,109 per share,” says Celia Puleo ’26, a member of the Archway executive committee and a FIRE sector analyst. “A week later, it was at $816. But we just kept buying and now we've gained on it, so we hit that one right.”

In addition to preparing students for future careers in finance, the Archway experience also helps them with their own bottom line.

“I've been involved in the market since I was 17 when I started off with a small Robin Hood account,” says Banoud. “Archway has helped me manage my finances more efficiently. When I was first getting started I was just buying the big names that I was hearing. I wasn't really doing any analysis or research.”

Mike Capraro ’25, who serves on the Archway executive committee and as an analyst in the fund’s technology group, says he has gained invaluable hands-on experience that will serve him well as he begins a job with Fidelity after graduation. 

“I had to handle complete market swings that erased a lot of the winnings we've had these past couple years,” he says. “A lot of our stocks have gone up or down 10 percent in one day, so that's something that I've had to not only learn to stomach, but be able to look at and say, 'Okay, why is this happening?'”

“A lot of our stocks have gone up or down 10 percent in one day, so that's something that I've had to not only learn to stomach, but be able to look at and say, 'Okay, why is this happening?'"

Puleo believes the current Archway leaders are leaving the fund in good shape for the next group of Finance students who will take over in the fall. The markets are likely to continue to be “rocky” for the rest of the year, she says, but the fund remains well positioned for long-term growth.

"A lot of people pulled out of the market earlier but we just continue to buy into it” and take advantage of the dip in share prices, Puleo says. “Historically, the S&P 500 stock market index goes upward, regardless, in the long term. So we feel pretty confident in continuing to pile thousands of dollars in.”