Highlights of the financial information laboratory, believed to be the first installed at a Tennessee college or university campus, include a 12-foot-long electronic stock ticker, 9-foot data wall, 61-inch plasma screen monitor and 14 workstations equipped with state-of-the-art financial analysis software. The room also comes with its own Bloomberg financial data terminal and television tuned to CNBC.
The room is designed to provide students with similar resources and technology as is found in the trading rooms of professional brokerages or investment firms, said assistant professor John Gonas, who will supervise the lab along with Joe Smolira, another Belmont professor. That means access to up-to-the-minute stock quotes, which regularly light up the room’s large data board and electronic ticker, and financial software to let students dig into specific areas of finance, from mortgage-backed securities to 10-year Treasury notes.
Gonas’ advanced portfolio class had the first chance to try out the new lab yesterday. “It’s awesome,” said Clay Peterson, a Belmont senior and finance major in Gonas’ class. “I think it gives us the opportunity to learn about finance in a way that you can’t get out of a textbook.”
