The Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi has emerged as the best team from India reaching the final of the Asia-Pacific round of the CFA research challenge. The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual educational initiative that promotes best practices in equity research through hands-on mentoring and intensive training in company analysis and presentation skills

Introduced in the year 2006, CFA Institute Research Challenge is considered as "The investment Olympics" for university students, with more than 10,000 students having already participated in the previous editions. The first stage of the India round consists of the zonal finals where 1 team is selected from each zone namely North, South, East, West and Central. The action then shifts to the national stage where the selected zonal teams compete for national supremacy. The top two teams from India make it to the Asia Pacific Round where they go head on with the country winners from the China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Melbourne, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Shanghai, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Sydney, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The eventual winner gets to represent Asia Pacific in the Global final.

In India, the CFA Institute and its member society-the Indian Association of Investment Professionals (IAIP) host the local competitions and are also supported by three other organizations namely the National Stock Exchange (NSE), Bloomberg and Fitch learning as sponsors and long term corporate partners.

The CFA Research challenge 2014 had 43 leading business schools and more than 209 students across the country for the 5 zonal spots .The five eventual zonal winners were

Zone	Winning Team	Subject company
Central Zone	Symboisis Institute of Information Technology, Pune	DB Corp Ltd
East Zone	Indian Institute of Management, Shillong	JagranPrakashan Ltd
South Zone	Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore	Sun TV Network Ltd
North Zone	Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi	HT Media Ltd
West Zone	National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Mumbai	Zee Entertainment Entreprises Ltd

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The National Final took place on Jan 31, 2014 at the Bombay office of Bloomberg where Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) Delhi and Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore emerged as the top two teams representing India at the Asia Pacific Regional Final of the competition held on 24April 2014 in Singapore.

The Asia pacific round of the competition saw 19 best B-Schools competing for a place among the top 4 teams. These 4 teams advanced to the final leg where they presented their research in front of a grand jury. The team from IIFT comprising Prannay Shetty, Shashank Jalan and Piyush Jain made it to the top 4 proving themselves to be the best team from India. Students from IIFT have performed exceptionally well in the CFA Research Challenge over the years cementing IIFT’s position among the elite Finance campuses of India.IIFT has won the CFA Research Challenge India leg thrice in the last 4 years and is the longest reigning national champion .

The process for this CFA research challenge 2014-15 has begun with the Asia Pacific Regional finals on 11-12 March in Manila, Philippines. The global final is on 17April 2015 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Siddharth Mehta is a 2nd year student at IIFT. He is a national level quizzer and a guitarist/singer who writes his own songs. He is a voracious reader and an expert in international trade affairs.

Siddharth Mehta

IIFT cements its position as one of the premier finance campuses in India