Hoperation Fund
Invited Talk
Every month, the Hoperation Fund invites outstanding students, professionals, and professors to deliver inspiring talks to us.
Title: Review of Large Language Models for Stock Price Forecasting from a Hedge-Fund Perspective
Speaker: Olivia Zhang
Time: 8:00 pm CST, June, 2026
In this talk, Ms. Zhang will first provide an overview of the latest applications of large language models (LLMs) in stock price forecasting. While many review papers discuss the broad applications of LLMs in finance, they often cover an overly wide scope. This presentation narrows the focus to a more specific area: the use of LLMs for stock price prediction. Drawing on research published between 2022 and early 2025, the talk categorizes existing applications into five major areas: sentiment extraction for predicting market movements, analysis of financial reports and earnings call transcripts, identification of cross-equity relationships, tokenization of stock price data for next-token prediction, and the development of agentic AI systems. In the second part of the talk, Ms. Zhang will discuss key challenges in applying LLMs to stock forecasting. These include issues such as the reliability of sentiment analysis, data leakage, database limitations, performance evaluation, illiquidity, and the fundamental challenge of market predictability. Finally, the talk will explore several promising directions for future research and practical improvements in the application of LLMs to stock price forecasting.
This presentation is based on her part-time work at a hedge fund, which was also published at the IEEE Conference on Artificial Intelligence in May 2026.
Title: Introduction to Private Equity
Speaker: Ning So
Time: 7:00 pm CST, April 12, 2026
In this talk, Mr. So will introduce the fundamentals of private equity (PE), including how PE funds are structured, how value is created through active ownership, and the main investment strategies, such as venture capital, growth equity, buyouts, and real estate private equity. He will also discuss why private equity matters in today’s economy and share insights from his own fund, Wentworth Capital LLC, to illustrate how private equity works in practice. Mr. So is currently serving as Managing Partner of Wentworth Capital LLC, a private equity fund with nearly $20 million in investment capital. He has over 10 years of investment experience and has also held major leadership roles in global technology, including at Reliance Jio and in cutting-edge work related to 5G/6G, cloud computing, and open-source innovation. In addition, he is a prolific inventor with more than 30 patents and patent applications and serves on the Industry Advisory Council of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at UT Dallas.
Title: The World of Professional Trading
Speaker: Daniel Penley
Time: 7:00 pm CST, March 1, 2026
Mr. Penley has had an extensive career spanning over twenty years in professional trading and investing, focusing on quantitative strategy development. He has led multiple teams building and deploying sophisticated technology for analysis and trading across stocks, futures, and options, giving him deep insight into how institutional players operate behind the scenes. He will break down the world of professional trading and explain how advanced strategies work in practice. Join the meeting on March 1st to discover how the pros really trade.
Title: Introduction to Venture Capital
Speaker: Angela Liu
Time: 7:00 pm CST, February 1, 2026
Ms. Liu has over 20 years of experience in investment, including more than a decade in venture capital. She has served as both a General Partner (GP) and a Limited Partner (LP) in multiple venture capital firms, giving her a comprehensive perspective on the industry from both the fund management and investor sides. In this talk, she will explain what venture capital is, how it works and why it matters.
Title: Inside Data Science: Career Paths and Future Trends
Speaker: Jing Wan
Time: 7:00 pm CST, January 11, 2026
Dr. Wan is a data science leader with a Ph.D. and 15+ years of experience in machine learning, big data, and analytics. At Verizon, she drives impactful insights through advanced modeling, Bayesian learning, and modern search technologies. She obtained her Ph.D. in machine learning from Purdue University and has published many AI papers in top-tier journals and conferences, such as IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, CVPR, and MICCAI.
In this talk, she will give a practical overview of what data science work looks like across industries—how teams are structured, what different roles (analyst, data scientist, ML engineer, analytics engineer, product data) actually do day to day, and which skills create the most leverage early in your career. She’ll share a clear roadmap for breaking in and growing—portfolio and project ideas, and habits that accelerate learning on the job. Finally, she’ll look ahead at future trends shaping the field, including the impact of generative AI and automation, and how to future-proof your career by focusing on problem framing, data quality, experimentation, and communication.
Title: Introduction to Consulting
Speaker: Carrie Su
Time: 5:00 pm CST, February 2, 2025
Ms. Su is a senior at UCLA, majoring in Business Economics and minoring in Social Data Science. Her impressive professional journey includes experience at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and L.E.K. Consulting. After graduation, she will join Bain & Company as an Associate Consultant.
In this talk, Ms. Su will provide an introduction to the consulting industry and share valuable career advice for aspiring professionals. Whether you're exploring a career in consulting or seeking guidance on navigating your career path, this talk is an excellent opportunity to gain insights from someone who has walked the path and succeeded.
