Nathan Lang, COL & WH ’26, Boston, MA
Over this summer, I explored my interests in investment management by working at a hedge fund in New York City called Monarch Capital Group. At this fund, the strategy targets small to micro-cap companies that operate in the healthcare, industrial, and technology sectors. Specifically, they target firms with a strong competitive moat, recurring revenue streams, and a strong macro tailwind.
As I have a strong interest in learning more about real-world investing, I wanted to pursue this internship to strengthen my experience in the investing world and prepare myself for a career in equities investing in the future. During my time there, the day-to-day was a lot of learning through observation. In the first weeks, I shadowed the investing partners during Zoom calls and in-person meetings with prospective firms and portfolio companies. During these meetings, I would ask questions to senior management at these firms to better understand the current situation in which these firms were in. On top of this, I also monitored these firms every day to check their newsfeeds, reports, and 8-Ks for any material changes to the firm. After a few weeks, I was able to work on my own project where I worked to produce a write and model for a firm after talking to the management team and other key stakeholders. It was a great process to learn hands-on how an investment decision is made and the thesis behind each investment. This experience solidified my investing intuition and allowed me to develop the necessary skills for financial analysis and forecasting.
The internship furthers my desire to continue a career in investment management as the work I did at the firm aligned perfectly with my interests. I really learned how to analyze a business’ fundamental drivers and models which then helped me filter out the good business models from the bad. It not only gave me a sense of the quantitative aspects of the analysis of an investment but also a strong understanding of the qualitative aspects that help with a firm’s management an growth. What this internship offers is the opportunity to speak with the CEOs and CFOs of the firms that they are invested in or seeking to invest in.
I am grateful for the opportunity to have this opportunity to pursue an experience in this industry. I hope to use my skills and experience to help others at Penn. I look forward to building upon the skills I have acquired in my undergraduate studies.
This is part of a series of posts by recipients of the 2023 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they spent their summer. You can read the entire series here
