Rewrite Essay
Tell us about a time you were challenged by a perspective that differed from your own. How did you respond? (200-250 words)
Rewrite the essay below with 650 words.
Rewrite classmate admission essay with main content intact but with 250 word counts. Feel free to reconstruct the whole essay and change anything. The tone requires to be in first person story narration with personal reflection.
Classmate admission essay:
One week into my summer internship at NoaX hedge fund, I learned to use the spreadsheet to run time-series regression with multiple factors considered to find a linear pattern of historical stock price data to identify which investments will perform best. As a team, we need to construct a ten-stock optimized investment portfolio to present to hedge fund managers at end of our internship. Using statistical methods, we were able to narrow down our search of sixty stocks in five sectors to thirty stocks. Next, we need to take our results from quantitative analysis and combine them with fundamental analysis to derive the best ten stocks for the portfolio.
“Given the recent economic uncertainty and geopolitical tension that cause heightened market volatility, I suggest we stay heavy-weighted in defensive stocks for our portfolio,” I said. “Absolutely not! I think high-tech stocks with high growth will give us the up-in return we look for” as Richard opposed my idea. “Amazon and Microsoft all have great returns last year. With them down over 10% and a recent rebound from June’s bottom, they might look attractive at this point,” Matthew and Richard did bring up some good points.
I listen and understand why they are advocating for high-tech investment strategy and what information they have to base their decision on that I am not aware. Once I understand that and still think my position has some validity and can contribute to our final decision, I then begin to formulate my response with in-depth research to back up my claims. I will need to make a convincing case as to why defensive stocks are a better option in the current market climate. This will require me to do my own research and develop a stronger argument.
Although I always favor high-tech companies when investing in the past and always believed in innovation will lead to future company earnings growth as the market rewards them with higher stock prices, I think this time is different. I respect their opinion and agree with them that those are great tech companies. But I am convinced that given Fed’s effort to fight inflation by raising interest rates will cause the high-tech’s valuation to come down as we discount their highly expected growth of future cash flows with a higher discount rate to result in a lower present valuation in stock price.
Instead of getting into a confrontational disagreement, I opted to do more research to validate their claim and also find evidence to back my claim. After extensive market research and fundamental analysis of the companies, I conclude that the Fed’s effort to fight inflation by aggressively raising interest rates will cause the valuation of high-techs to decline as we discount their aggressively high growth future cash flows with higher discount rate to result in lower present valuation in stock price. Moreover, Fed’s tightening monetary policy could lead the global economy into a recession which will negatively affect high-tech’s earning growth and its high P/E valuation. I found a few defensive stocks continue to go up, like Lockheed Martin, Eli Lily, and UnitedHealth. The demand for their products will not be affected by the anticipated slowdown in the economy. The Ukraine war and recent global tension will drive Lockheed’s earnings. The aging population’s needs for healthcare and the groundbreaking new drug will drive Eli and UnitedHealth’s profitability.
I present my findings to Richard and Matthew and convince them with my arguments. Ultimately, we constructed a portfolio with mixture of high-tech and defensive stocks where we all agree it was the best choices. We had a successful presentation as hedge fund managers were impressed with our selection. Three months later, our profolio has returned more than 15% proving our teamwork works.
