TAMID GROUP FUND & FINANCE

BETA EDU Spring 2025 HANDBOOK 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TAMID BETA FUND & FINANCE PROGRAM OVERVIEW        2

STOCK PITCH BEST PRACTICES        3

STOCK PITCH GRADING        9

ALL LINKS        10

TAMID BETA FUND & FINANCE PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Welcome to the TAMID Beta Fund & Finance Program! We are eager to provide you with the foundational tools necessary to navigate the investing world in a new and exciting way! The Beta program includes an introduction to this track through the educational curriculum, and there is one Stock Pitch competition that Beta chapters will participate in.

TAMID Beta Stock Pitch Competition:

The winner of the Beta Education Stock Pitch competition will receive a prize of $100 added to their chapter’s budget.

The deadline is as follows:

All submissions are due by 11:59 PM EST. An extension may be requested depending upon the circumstance the chapter is facing. To request for an extension, please reach out to expansion@tamidgroup.org using the heading “[TAMID at Chapter Name: Request for an Extension].”

TAMID Global will review 2 pitch submissions per chapter per round. Chapters should hold an internal stock pitch competition to decide which pitch should be submitted for the deadline.

STOCK PITCH BEST PRACTICES 

How to Find a Company to Pitch

There’s no “right” way to generate an investment idea, and finding an attractive stock is often more an art than a science. Your method for finding an attractive stock will also depend on your chosen investment strategy and your personal interests. For example, ask yourself whether you are interested in pitching a growth company, distressed company, value-play, merger arbitrage etc. and whether you find any industries more compelling than others. Common techniques that may serve as a starting point include the following:

Screens: Use your schools financial data resources (Bloomberg, CapIQ, Refinitiv, Pitchbook, FactSet, etc) to search for stocks that meet certain financial and qualitative criteria. Criteria may include geography, industry, trading multiples, revenue growth, margins, and ownership percentages. Once you have a list of companies that fit this criteria, do another layer of research on each company to determine whether you believe it would be an attractive investment.

Look at what other people are buying: Institutional investors are required to report their holdings quarterly through forms called 13Fs. Read through the 13Fs of investors that you respect to get an idea of potentially interesting companies. Holdings may also be included in investor letters. When using this method, it’s important to understand the investor’s strategy. For example, looking at the holdings of a high-frequency trading hedge fund will not be helpful when pitching a fundamental strategy.

The News: It’s hard to predict where your next good investment idea will come from, but consistently monitoring news and industry trends can be a source of inspiration. By regularly reading financial publications, business news, and sector-specific reports, you can stay ahead of major events like mergers, acquisitions, regulatory shifts, or new market entrants that might signal investment opportunities. Pairing this real-time information with your investment criteria, such as aligning with a growth or value strategy, will help you identify attractive companies.

Note: In general, avoid overly diversified companies given that analyzing many disparate product lines and subsidiaries is harder than analyzing a few.

Where to Find Information

For basic background information including products/services, customers, and revenue model, the best place to start is the company’s website and the business overview section of the company’s annual report. The annual report can be found on the company’s investor relations page or the SEC’s EDGAR website. For financial performance information, read the annual report as well as quarterly filings, known as 10Qs. Earnings calls, press releases, and investor presentations will also be helpful in providing context and discussion of recent financial performance. For industry research, make sure to leverage your school’s free online resources such as IBIS World, Gartner, and Statista. Industry participant surveys can also be helpful for understanding customer trends.

Ideal Stock Pitch Structure

An ideal stock pitch consists of the following components: recommendation(s), company background, industry overview, investment thesis, catalysts, risks and how to mitigate them, and valuation.

 

Here is a breakdown of an ideal stock pitch:

Investment Idea Summary: At the beginning of the pitch, it is critical to provide an overview of the stock’s upwards or downwards trend, including information on the current share price, target price (based on your DCF and your earnings estimate * multiple), % upside/downside ratio, market capitalization, historical share price range, EV/EBITDA and P/E, enterprise value, and the number of shares your team is recommending TAMID either purchase or sell. Additionally, briefly mention your investment thesis. You will elaborate on your investment thesis later on in the presentation. Information presented in this slide should be easily conveyed and actionable. Depending on the investment idea, be sure to set either a buy target at a substantial discount rate to intrinsic value or a sell target.  

Company Overview: Be sure to provide information on the company’s business model, including the company’s revenue streams, customer segmentation, products/services, and pricing. In order for the stock pitch to be convincing, it’s important to give the audience a solid understanding of the core drivers of the company. Within this section, also include basic descriptors of the company, such as trading symbol, operating sector, consumer base, geographic reach, size metrics, year of founding, and current corporate ladder (with explanations of the value provided by various executives). A stock price chart with significant events labeled (split, dividend announcement, news, etc) should also be included.

Relevance to Israel: As part of TAMID's core foundation, all pitches must convey some connection between the company in question and Israel. Possible connections include an Israeli headquarters, prominent operations located there, R&D labs in Israel, and acquisitions of Israeli startups among others. It should be noted that any pitches not including an attempt to draw a relevance between the company in question and Israel will not be considered for investment, regardless of performance in other categories.

Industry Overview: Provide an industry description, industry trends, and overview of the competitive landscape. When creating an industry overview, it’s best practice to be as specific as possible when categorizing the industry segments that the company operates in. For example, if you were pitching Salesforce, a relevant industry vertical would be customer relationship management (CRM) software. Since Salesforce also offers marketing automation software, marketing automation software would be another industry segment that Salesforce falls within. Salesfore’s broader industry is software, and the sector is technology. If the industry is complicated, a market map or industry value chain can be helpful tools for conveying the market dynamics. When including industry trends, make sure that the trends are specific and relevant to the company you’re analyzing. If including a trend, try to provide data related to that trend. For example, rather than saying “Use of digital voice assistant technology is increasing,” say “According to [xyx] study, [x]% of firms are expected to incorporate digital voice assistant technology by 2027, an increase of [y]% from current levels.” Pay attention to metrics such as the market size, industry growth rate, penetration, and customer adoption rates. Within the industry overview, detail the competitive landscape. Idefinity competitors and describe how their products/services compare to your company’s. If you find that your company provides a superior product/service, this may also serve as a convincing investment thesis if you have evidence to support it.

Investment Thesis: Answer the question, “Why is this company worth investing in or selling?” Identify 2-4 key reasons you believe the stock price will move towards your target price. Each reason should be supported with quantitative and qualitative evidence. Make sure to thoroughly explain your ideas as the investment thesis is the most important section. Your investment thesis can take many shapes and forms. For example, maybe you have identified an industry trend that your company is uniquely positioned to benefit from. Maybe the company is launching a new product that will significantly impact the company’s revenue growth. Maybe the company has made irresponsible fiscal decisions that will hurt the stock price in future years. Given that a stock price reflects current market sentiment about a company, a strong thesis idea should be differentiated. In other words, ask yourself, “What are other investors not seeing or misinterpreting about this stock?” A strong investment thesis is difficult to develop, so don’t be discouraged if this section takes a long time. When putting together the investment thesis, be sure to provide evidence for each of your claims, similar to how you would write an argumentative essay. Provide quantitative detail whenever possible.

Catalysts: Catalysts are especially important when assessing short-term investments. Identify specific events that can drive the stock closer to your target price. For example, is there a product release coming up that you believe will be important for investors’ views of the company? Have there been recent macro developments, such as economic events or legislative changes, that will specifically impact this company? Catalysts can be included within your investment thesis.

Financials and Valuation: The objective is to provide support as to why the company that is being pitched is either undervalued or overvalued. In this section, you will perform both intrinsic and relative valuation of the company. Intrinsic valuation entails performing a Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) analysis in order to determine the estimated value of the investment based on discounting the company’s future cash flows to present value using the weighted average cost of capital. Relative valuation is used when analyzing the average multiples of other companies within the industry. Identify ratios such as P/E, P/B, P/S, Enterprise Value/EBITDA, Enterprise Value/Revenue, Enterprise Value/EBIT and Price/Cash Flows. Additionally, compare a stock’s current multiples to its historical range in order to identify the trends in the stock’s valuation (e.g. traded at a discount historically).

When analyzing a company’s financial statements, think about what influences the revenue and margin (ex. Volume, pricing, overhead, material costs, labor costs, M&A, etc.). As you analyze the financial history of the stock, think about what story can be told based upon the company’s performance. Think about answering questions such as, “How does a company’s growth rate affect its P/E ratio?”

DCF: At a minimum, project out revenue, cost of sales, SG&A expenses, D&A, changes in working capital, and capex. Include justification for each of your assumptions based on management commentary, your analysis of the company and market, and consensus estimates. For find any industries more compelling than others. Common techniques that may serve as a starting point include the following:your discount rate, include a source for each of your inputs, such as risk-free rate, betas, equity risk premium, and cost of debt.

Comps: Convey analysis of the company in question alongside its notable competitors/peers (recommended 3-6 companies). It is strongly encouraged to do so by means of a table or spreadsheet. Data to use for the analysis include but are not limited to: market capitalization, enterprise value, revenue, gross profit, EBITDA, revenue growth rate, gross margins, EBITDA margins, net income margins, EV/EBITDA, EV/Revenue, P/E. Provide key takeaways from your comps analysis.

Templates:

  1. DCF: Be sure to include the full model with all calculations in your submission
  1. DCF Template
  1. Relative Valuation:
  1. Comparable Company Analysis

All chapters are welcome to use the templates above, but are encouraged to expand upon it

More helpful links on valuation are listed below:

General DCF Overview

Net Working Capital

Terminal Value

Mid-Year Convention

WACC

 

Risks & how to mitigate them: The risks section provides a clear picture of the factors that may negatively affect the investment thesis. Identify 2-3 market and company reasons why there may be an error with your investment thesis. Be specific with the risk factors you choose to explore.

Conclusion: Provide a brief summary of the reasons why you are opting to invest in this company.

Presenting the Stock Pitch

All chapters are required to submit a video presentation with all team analysts present.  This can either be a screen-recorded presentation or a filmed presentation. The recording should be 15 minutes or less. Please submit the accompanying slide deck separately, along with the presentation. Please fix any computer/formatting errors prior to submitting. Business casual dress code is needed for full points.

Formatting

Excel and PowerPoint are some of the most valuable skills that you will learn from the TAMID Fund and Finance Program, given that you will use them in almost any career in finance. Thus, members should pay careful attention to the formatting of their decks and models.

Text: Most buy-side investment committee memos are more text-heavy than the presentations you’re likely used to giving in class. TAMID encourages members to include important details in words on slides, but the text should be organized into sections and supported by graphs, charts, and images that make your slides more visually appealing. Not every sentence in your deck needs to be verbally stated in your presentation. Instead, include key takeaways along with details that can be referenced as you speak. However, do not make text so small that it cannot be read. A font size of about 10 is the smallest your text should be.

Whitespace: To make your presentations more aesthetic, try to avoid large blank spaces on your slides.

Charts: Format your charts in excel / Google Sheets to make them consistent with your PowerPoint theme and colors. Avoid simply taking screenshots of charts that you find online.

Microsoft vs Google? See if your school offers free subscriptions to Microsoft 365. Teams are encouraged to use PowerPoint and Excel rather than Google Slides and Sheets, given that you will most likely be using Microsoft products in your career. Learning the Powerpoint/Excel shortcuts now can pay large dividends in your internships and full-time jobs. If possible, try using Microsoft Sharepoint to collaborate in real time.

Examples

This pitch from TAMID’s McGill chapter does a good job of including a detailed investment thesis, expanding upon each point with quantitative and qualitative evidence, and demonstrating a deep understanding of the company and its industry. The pitch is also well formatted with a mix of text, graphics, and headers that organize each of the ideas.

Real investment memos from hedge funds can be found here. While many of these pitches aren’t the format outlined above, they can provide helpful examples of investment theses from professional investors.

Every year, presentations in the Pershing Square Challenge are published here. When examining their investment theses, keep in mind that Pershing Square is an activist hedge fund, which differs from TAMID’s long-only investment style. Still, each of the presentations are a good resource for learning how to recognize company strengths/weaknesses as well as learning what are the most important company and industry details that should be included in a pitch. For a value-investing specific competition, see the presentations listed here.

Your school’s investment club may also post pitches from students. For example, NYU’s Investment Analysis Group posts pitches from their members here.

The winning pitch from the Fall 2023 Mid-Semester Stock Pitch can be found here.

STOCK PITCH GRADING

In order for a submission to be considered complete, chapters must submit all of the following: a pitch deck, a quantitative (DCF) report, and a video presentation. All submissions must be submitted via the Submission Form. Feedback will be emailed to DoFs within roughly two weeks of each pitch round closing.

Scoring

Following numerous conversations and discussions pertaining to grading standards, TAMID has decided to discontinue the 100-point based rubric that has been used in the past. Instead, grading will consider the pitch more holistically. Teams will receive feedback and a score from 1 to 10 based on the depth of the research, the compellingness of the pitch, the team’s understanding of the company, and the professionalism of the presentation. Teams are encouraged to use the best practices described above for guidance on elements to include in the pitch.

Key Assessment Criteria

Teams will receive feedback on the following areas:

An example TAMID pitch can be found here. Teams can also use the following rubric as a reference for what elements should be included in the pitch: Rubric

It should be noted that any pitches not including an attempt to draw a relevance between the company in question and Israel will not be considered for the final rounds, regardless of performance in other categories.

ALL LINKS

Important Links

Fall 2025 Stock Pitch Submission Form 

Quantitative Report Template