Media Releases

Teams from Italy and Canada tie for first at the Rotman International Trading Competition at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management

February 26, 2014

TORONTO, ON – Fifty-two teams includ­ing 281 stu­dent traders, ana­lysts, and risk man­agers rep­re­sent­ing 47 dif­fer­ent uni­ver­si­ties across Cana­da, the Unit­ed States, Europe, Africa and Asia par­tic­i­pat­ed in the 11th annu­al Rot­man Inter­na­tion­al Trad­ing Com­pe­ti­tion (RITC) which was held at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment from Feb­ru­ary 20 to 22.

When the dust set­tled after six rounds of trad­ing, two teams rep­re­sent­ing LUISS Uni­ver­si­ty in Italy and Uni­ver­sité Laval in Cana­da tied for first over­all in the com­pe­ti­tion. A team of Mas­ter of Finan­cial Engi­neer­ing stu­dents from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Berke­ley placed third while a team of Mas­ter of Finan­cial Engi­neer­ing stu­dents from Baruch Col­lege placed fourth. A team of Bach­e­lor of Com­merce stu­dents from the Haskayne School of Busi­ness at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary placed fifth.

The RITC uti­lizes sim­u­lat­ed trad­ing cas­es that close­ly mim­ic dif­fer­ent aspects of real world mar­kets — includ­ing those for com­modi­ties, fixed income and options — as well as par­tic­u­lar strate­gies such as algo­rith­mic mar­ket mak­ing. In addi­tion, there were two out­cry ses­sions which will recre­ate the tra­di­tion­al trad­ing floors.  The com­pe­ti­tion was held on the state-of-the-art BMO Finan­cial Group Finance Research and Trad­ing Lab, which opened last fall at Rot­man School.

“Con­grat­u­la­tions to all of the teams for their excel­lent prepa­ra­tion, enthu­si­as­tic par­tic­i­pa­tion and exem­plary per­for­mance,” said Mar­co Saler­no, the man­ag­er of the BMO Finan­cial Group Finance Research and Trad­ing Lab.

“The par­tic­i­pants demon­strat­ed their skills mak­ing real-time deci­sions to man­age risks and oppor­tu­ni­ties asso­ci­at­ed with com­plex issues in finan­cial mar­kets”, added Prof. Tom McCur­dy, who is the Bon­ham Chair in Inter­na­tion­al Finance and Found­ing  Direc­tor of the Lab.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to team com­posed of: Wil­son Chen, a Com­merce stu­dent at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Mis­sis­sauga; Leo Guo from Engi­neer­ing Sci­ence; David Hung and Iffat Kashif who are Rot­man Mas­ter of Finance stu­dents; and Bowen Xue and Kevin Yang who are both stu­dents in the Rot­man Com­merce pro­gram; fin­ished in the top 10 in a very com­pet­i­tive field.

BP Ener­gy Com­pa­ny was the spon­sor of the BP Com­modi­ties Trad­ing Case and CIBC World Mar­kets was the spon­sor of the CIBC Yield Curve Trad­ing Case. Addi­tion­al finan­cial sup­port for the com­pe­ti­tion was pro­vid­ed by Thom­son Reuters, Cap­i­tal IQ and CFA Soci­ety Toron­to.

The Rot­man School’s BMO Finan­cial Group Finance Research and Trad­ing Lab Lab is a ful­ly equipped lab designed to pro­mote expe­ri­en­tial learn­ing in the area of finan­cial mar­kets and data. The com­pe­ti­tion cas­es are imple­ment­ed over the high­ly acclaimed Rot­man Inter­ac­tive Trad­er appli­ca­tion, a mar­ket sim­u­la­tion tool being used in over 40 uni­ver­si­ties and mon­ey man­age­ment firms around the world. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the lab is avail­able at http://financelab.rotman.utoronto.ca.

The Rot­man School of Man­age­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to is redesign­ing busi­ness edu­ca­tion for the 21st cen­tu­ry with a cur­ricu­lum based on Inte­gra­tive Think­ing. Locat­ed in the world’s most diverse city, the Rot­man School fos­ters a new way to think that enables the design of cre­ative busi­ness solu­tions.  For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

 ‑30-

For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact:

Ken McGuf­fin
Man­ag­er, Media Rela­tions
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Voice 416.946.3818
E‑mail mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca
Fol­low Rot­man on Twit­ter @rotmanschool
Watch Rot­man on You Tube www.youtube.com/rotmanschool