Media Releases

BMO Financial Group Finance Research and Trading Lab inaugurated at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management

October 31, 2013

TORONTO, ON – A new gen­er­a­tion of finance stu­dents at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment will ben­e­fit from the open­ing of the BMO Finan­cial Group Finance Research and Trad­ing Lab.

The lab, which opened this fall in a new­ly ren­o­vat­ed space at the Rot­man School, pro­vides stu­dents in the Rot­man MBA, Mas­ter of Finance, Exec­u­tive MBA, Rot­man Com­merce and oth­er U of T pro­grams, with access to real-time finan­cial resources and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain hands-on train­ing in a range of finan­cial dis­ci­plines, includ­ing invest­ment strat­e­gy and port­fo­lio man­age­ment, risk man­age­ment, trad­ing and analy­sis of the microstruc­ture of mar­kets.

Although based in the Rot­man School’s north build­ing, the lab is an exten­sion of the new class­room space and tech­nol­o­gy of the School’s south build­ing which opened last year and dou­bled the amount of teach­ing, research, study, pre­sen­ta­tion and spe­cial event space for the school.

The lab refur­bish­ment was sup­port­ed with a $1.75 mil­lion gift from BMO Finan­cial Group.

“For nine of the past ten years, the Rot­man School of Man­age­ment has been ranked the top busi­ness school in Cana­da, and Rot­man is one of the rea­sons why Toron­to is ranked one of the world’s lead­ing finan­cial hubs,” said Bill Downe, Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer, BMO Finan­cial Group. “Tal­ent dri­ves Canada’s rep­u­ta­tion as an inno­va­tor and leader in risk and port­fo­lio man­age­ment and finan­cial ana­lyt­ics, and the new BMO Finan­cial Group Finance Research and Trad­ing Lab will help ensure that stu­dents get hands-on expe­ri­ence to com­ple­ment what they learn in the class­room.”

“Since it was found­ed, the lab has pro­vid­ed numer­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties for train­ing, research and cur­ricu­lum devel­op­ment that con­tribute to the inte­gra­tion of teach­ing and research with prac­tice”, says Prof. Tom McCur­dy who is the founder and direc­tor of the lab. “We are grate­ful for the sup­port of BMO Finan­cial Group, which has allowed us to expand our phys­i­cal space and the resources avail­able for both stu­dents and fac­ul­ty.”

The BMO Finan­cial Group Finance Research and Trad­ing Lab has 71 dual flat pan­el sta­tions, two media/data walls and an inte­grat­ed sound sys­tem. Real-time data feeds and oth­er resources avail­able in the lab include the Thom­son Reuters Eikon plat­form, Fact­set, S&P Cap­i­tal IQ, Bloomberg ter­mi­nals and a wealth of research data­bas­es.  In addi­tion, the Lab has a grow­ing stock of cus­tom-designed soft­ware includ­ing the Rot­man Inter­ac­tive Trad­er, a mar­ket sim­u­la­tion tool with more than 30 cas­es, being used in more than 40 uni­ver­si­ties and com­pa­nies around the world.

Ear­li­er this year the lab held its 10th Annu­al Rot­man Inter­na­tion­al Trad­ing Com­pe­ti­tion (RITC) which attract­ed 240 stu­dent traders rep­re­sent­ing 48 uni­ver­si­ties from Asia, Europe, Unit­ed States and Cana­da. The 11th annu­al com­pe­ti­tion will be held in Feb­ru­ary 2014. The com­pe­ti­tion cas­es are imple­ment­ed on the high­ly acclaimed Rot­man Inter­ac­tive Trad­er plat­form. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the RITC is avail­able at http://ritc.rotman.utoronto.ca.

The Rot­man School’s BMO Finan­cial Group Finance Research and Trad­ing Lab has been designed to pro­mote expe­ri­en­tial learn­ing in the area of finan­cial mar­kets and real-time deci­sion-mak­ing under uncer­tain­ty. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the lab is avail­able at http://financelab.rotman.utoronto.ca.

About the Rot­man School of Man­age­ment

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. The School is cur­rent­ly rais­ing $200 mil­lion to ensure Cana­da has the world-class busi­ness school it deserves. For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

About BMO Finan­cial Group

Estab­lished in 1817 as Bank of Mon­tre­al, BMO Finan­cial Group is a high­ly diver­si­fied North Amer­i­can finan­cial ser­vices orga­ni­za­tion. With total assets of $549 bil­lion as at July 31, 2013, and more than 46,000 employ­ees, BMO Finan­cial Group pro­vides a broad range of per­son­al and com­mer­cial bank­ing, wealth man­age­ment and invest­ment bank­ing prod­ucts and solu­tions.

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Media Con­tacts:
Ken McGuf­fin, Rot­man School of Man­age­ment, Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Tele­phone: (416) 946‑3818
mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca
@rotmanschool

Paul Dee­gan, BMO Finan­cial Group
Tele­phone: (416) 867‑3996
paul.deegan@bmo.com
www.bmo.com
@BMOmedia