Groundbreaking: Wharton Sophomore Believes that the Market Overvalues Penn Dining Swipes

Jason Lee (W '20) usually doesn’t offer pitches in Wharton Undergraduate Business Analytics and Finance Group general body meetings, but this time he had a change of heart.

Lee decided that it was time to drop some knowledge on his peers, in hopes of securing a position on the exec board by the next application cycle. He did what no other person before him had dared to do: argue that Penn Dining swipes are overvalued.

“Mr. Market is clearly overvaluing the intrinsic value of swipes. $18 for a dinner swipe? Nothing at Commons is worth more than $2. Hill isn’t that bad, but that opportunity cost! The price is due for a regression in the next quarter, and Penn Dining will probably lose a lot of money.”

Lee concluded his pitch by screaming “I’m going to short Penn Dining!”, for which he received thunderous applause and even some standing ovations from freshmen who have yet to take an economics course at Penn (or ever).

We will concede though that the presentation—which Lee insisted we call a “deck”—was pretty fascinating and had some sick transitions.

Jared Fields, an Economics major in the College, convincingly argued that Lee’s presentation was fundamentally wrong. “Well, no shit it’s overvalued—Penn Dining’s running a monopoly out here. It doesn’t take a genius to tell you to switch your dining plan.”