Belmont opens electronic securities trading floor

Email | Print By David A. Fox

01-25-2005 12:54 PM — With seed money provided by venture capitalists Clayton and Stuart McWhorter, students at Belmont University can now experience the world's financial markets in a new electronic trading room established on campus.

Loaded with 14 workstations, a Bloomberg terminal and a 60-inch plasma monitor, the trading room began hosting classes this morning.

It also is being used in Belmont's College of Business Administration by undergraduate students of assistant finance professors Joe Smolira and John Gonas. Their class will manage $450,000 belonging to the Tennessee Valley Authority. Under Smolira's supervision, Belmont students have managed a portfolio for TVA the past fivc years, including last year in which the portfolio increased 29% in value.

The trading room is on the first floor of the Jack Massey Business Center.