Rate My Professor James Ma

James Ma is a tenured Professor of Finance and the James Burwell Endowed Chair in Finance in the Meinders School of Business at Oklahoma City University, where he joined in 2008. He holds a Ph.D. in Finance from the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, an M.A. in Political Science from the University of New Orleans, and an LL.B. in Political Science from Beijing University. He was also a candidate for an M.B.A. at the Yale School of Management, supported by Yale Scholarship Grant and Frederick T. Holliday Memorial Scholarships. Prior to his academic career, Ma served as a NASD-certified equity trader holding Series 7, Series 55, and Series 24 licenses at Worldco L.L.C. in New York City from 1998 to 2002. Earlier, from 1990 to 1994, he worked as a Certified International Trade Representative at Henan Machinery Import and Export Corp. in China, leading his team to victory in the 1992 Provincial International Trade Knowledge Competition and earning Honor Employee recognition.

Ma's research interests center on investments, with a focus on socially responsible investing, including the competitiveness of socially screened mutual funds versus conventional mutual funds and returns from green investing strategies. He has published in Financial Management and the Journal of Applied Finance, with key papers such as 'Around-the-Clock Performance of Closed-End Funds' (Financial Management, 2010, co-authored with B. Branch and J. Sawyer) and 'Overnight Return, the Invisible Hand Behind Intraday Returns?' (Journal of Applied Finance, 2012, co-authored with B. Branch). His research has been presented at Financial Management Association meetings, Eastern Finance Association annual meetings, and the Seoul International Derivatives Securities Conference, and cited in top journals including the Journal of Financial Economics and Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. It has informed investment strategies on platforms like Quantpedia.com, AlphaArchitect.com, and CXO Advisory Group, and been featured in media such as CNBC, Bloomberg-Businessweek, and Wealth Magazine. At Oklahoma City University, Ma received the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Excellence in Teaching Award in 2016 and the Outstanding Faculty Award in 2022. During his Ph.D., he held a Lilly Teaching Assistantship and a University of Notre Dame conference scholarship.