It’s not every day that students get
to practice the trading strategies they learn in a classroom with a hands-on, market
simulated trading platforms. Recently, 11 students and our
fearless director, Ahmad Namini, flew north to compete in the Rotman International Trading Competition in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 48 schools from around the globe competed in 7 trading events that tested market intuition, speed of reaction and
recovery, model making, and algorithm writing skills.
 |
| Hard at work in the Finance Lab |
We arrived in Toronto really late on Thursday
night. While we missed the opening
ceremony, we were still able to bond over the one pound Wings special at a
local sports bar! We woke up early on Friday morning so we could get checked
in, have first pick at the breakfast spread, and start sizing up our
competition.
The first case we competed in was a Commodities trading case. Four
team members worked together to aggregate the largest P&L. It was great to
work alongside teammates and hedge each other in order to mitigate risk
associated with commodities trading.
 |
| Commodities trading |
The afternoon case was Sales & Trader. Here, we traded two
assets using a combination of limit orders, market orders, tender offers, and
auction pricing. It was a very exciting element of the competition and one our
team succeed in. The fun didn't stop here!
That evening, we had a Quantitative
Outcry case.There were two analysts who sat
in a room on the second floor with glass windows and performed calculations
based on market news while signaling to their two traders on the floor. The
traders on the floor interacted in the traditional “Open Outcry” trading floor.
This was a test of patience, persistence, and volume! Even though most trading
occurs electronically now, it was fascinating to experience what a traditional
trading floor looks like with people yelling “BID!” and “ASK!” and “SOLD!”
 |
| Quant trading on the floor! |
 |
| Members of the Quantitative Outcry trading team |
We concluded that evening with a
team dinner and social at a local bar. We hung out with students from our program and also mingling
with students from around the world! Industry professionals and faculty advisers attended the social which was a
neat networking opportunity.
 |
| Team dinner in downtown Toronto |
A Saturday morning wake-up call at
6:30 am isn't always enjoyable…but the excitement of another day of competition
quickly changed our spirits. Saturday we traded the CIBC Yield curve case. This
case required us to build an interest rate model for three coupon bonds of
different maturities based on the interest rates of four zero coupon bonds. We
also received news events that randomly entered the market. These news events
drove the prices of the bonds up and down creating arbitrage and market making
opportunities.
Throughout the weekend we ran an algorithm that was programmed through Visual Basic which was monitored by one team member. We worked on this
several weeks up until the competition and made tweaks throughout the
competition.
The culminating reception for the
competition occurred on the top floor lookout of the 1000-foot tall CN tower in downtown Toronto. It provided a stunning
view of the city lights and was a phenomenal way to end a successful and
educational weekend in Toronto. We celebrated in China Town after the reception
and then hopped on a plane on Sunday morning to face the hours of homework we
had prolonged all weekend!
 |
| Team members celebrating a successful weekend on the lookout floor of the CN Tower |
๑ - @ - ๑_A_Little_More_About_The_Blogger_๑ - @ - ๑
Annika Westre is using an academic background of mathematics and a passion for financial markets to leverage career opportunities in quantitative portfolio management or risk management. Annika enjoys cooking new food, drinking coffee, running, exploring Boston, and playing Sudoku.
No comments:
Post a Comment