UQ Business School students place 11th in international trading competition

23 Feb 2009
UQ Business School students last week placed 11th in the Rotman International Trading Competition hosted by the University of Toronto, Canada. Up against teams from 36 universities including US teams from Harvard, MIT, and Northwestern University, and teams from the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) and the UK's Cass Business School, the UQ Business School team finished 3rd in the challenging sales and trader case. Team manager Dr Jason Hall accompanied the team of Tristan Fitzgerald (Sunnybank Hills), David Costello (Sunnybank Hills), Jessica Jouning (Redland Bay) and Paul Schneider (Yeronga). The students are part of the Commerce Honours program. Dr Hall said participants in the second challenge - a sales and trader case - were required to trade equities by making a market for institutional investors and proprietary trading. "The team did brilliantly to come in third - especially coming back from a disappointing 25th place in the first round credit risk case," he said. "The aim of the credit risk case was to trade corporate bonds whose fair value was a function of credit rating, probability of default, and recovery value." "The team finished 20th in the quantitative outcry case in which participants traded stock index futures contracts in a trading pit. Trading pits still operate in some commodities markets." "The team made further ground trading gas futures contracts, in a case designed by major sponsor BP, to achieve an overall rank of 11th," he said. "The competition does an outstanding job of simulating conditions in the world of finance and their performance demonstrates the readiness of these students to work anywhere in the world." "Despite current conditions, outstanding candidates like these students will find great jobs - where they will bring their intelligence and principles to the task of rebuilding the banking and finance sector." The result comes after the UQBS team placed 6th overall in 2007. UQ Business School's Commerce Honours program is open only to the highest performing Commerce or Commerce dual degree students.

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