ITHACA, N.Y. -- Students from the top U.S. business schools will compete in the first-ever MBA Stock Pitch Competition this April 3 and 4 at Cornell. The competition for future stock analysts is sponsored by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell. It takes place at the Johnson School's Parker Center for Investment Research in Sage Hall in the center of campus.

The competition will provide a platform for students to showcase their stock picking and presentation skills, considered an important part of an analyst's job in the investment industry. The first-place team will receive a $3,000 award and the second-place team, an award of $1,500.

"The Johnson School is hosting the competition because we believe the real-time, experiential focus that stock pitching represents is part of the future of investment management education at business schools," said Charles Lee, the Johnson School professor and expert on stock valuation who directs the Parker Center. "The new breed of investment analyst must be independent and able to provide strong analysis to back selections with a full understanding that success comes from the performance of the equity."

In addition to the Johnson School, teams of three are competing from top-tier business schools: Harvard, the University of Chicago, New York University, Dartmouth, Duke, Columbia, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) and the University of Michigan.

The judges for the competition are six expert analysts and investment managers from both the buy and sell sides of Wall Street equity investing. They are:

o Richard E. Cripps, CFA, chief market strategist, Legg Mason. Cripps serves as co-chairman of the company's investment committee and is one of the nation's most highly regarded commentators on the stock market.

o Andrew J. Galligan Jr., CFA, director and analyst, TimesSquare Capital Management. He heads the small capitalization equity group and is responsible for covering the technology and Internet sectors.

o William R. Gruver, visiting professor and distinguished executive in residence, Bucknell University. Gruver joined the management department of Bucknell after a 20-year career at Goldman Sachs & Co., where he was general partner and chief administrative officer of the firm's equities division.

o Judah S. Kraushaar, a Johnson School alumnus, recently retired from Merrill Lynch following a 20-year career on Wall Street as a sell-side analyst. Kraushaar was a first vice president and led a 10-person equity research team covering U.S. banks, brokers and asset managers. He was the No. 1 ranked Institutional Investor money center bank analyst in 1997-2001 and part of Institutional Investor 's all-American research team in 1991-96 and 2002.

o Stephen A. Lanzendorf, CFA, Independence Investments. Lanzendorf is director of his firm's quantitative research department, conducts quantitative analysis, manages U.S. equity portfolios and is a firm principal.

o Peter A. Wright, founder of P.A.W. Partners, one of the largest U.S. hedge funds.

The format is as follows: Before the contest begins, students will train to use two computer-based equity research systems at the Parker Center -- FactSet, an online investment research service used by financial institutions worldwide, and Reuters StockVal, an equity analysis and portfolio management tool used globally by institutional investment firms. The contestants will then research and prepare three stock pitches for a preliminary and a final round. Each pitch will be no more than five minutes, plus an additional five to 10 minutes for questions from judges. In the preliminary round, teams will pitch two stocks, one common to all teams and one chosen at each team's discretion from an assigned industry.

"The Johnson School is thrilled to be the co-sponsor and host of this event," said Lee. "We believe stock analysis and presentation are vital skills for the new breed of analyst. Live teaching and live cases need to be an integral part of business schools programs, particularly in the area of investment management."

The competition takes place under the auspices of the Parker Center, a hands-on teaching center for financial analysis. In addition to the Johnson School and NYSE, FactSet and StockVal are competition co-sponsors. For details, see this Web site: http://www.mbastockpitch.com/ . For highlights the week after the event, see http://www.johnson.cornell.edu .

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EDITORS: Media are invited to attend the event, which is free and open to the public. For information contact student organizer Jim Walden, , or Linda Myers at Cornell News Service, (607) 255-9735 or .