Fordham wins 1st place at University Trading Challenge

Graduate | Nov 18, 2015 | Gabelli School of Business

Standing with the University Trading Challenge organizers, the four winning Fordham MSQF students, from left, Siddarth, Zhifang Sun, Qi Zhou and Yiming Huang.

Four graduate students at the Gabelli School of Business bested teams from eight other universities to come in first at the U.S. University Trading Challenge, held in Philadelphia last weekend.

The four Masters of Science in Quantitative Finance students won the competition “without the help of faculty and while carrying an extremely challenging course load,” said Douglas Blackburn, the academic director for the MSQF program.

The team members are Siddharth, MSQF ’17; Qi Zhou, MSQF ’17; Yiming Huang, MSQF ’17; and Zhifang Sun, MSQF ’16. In addition to the team’s overall first place award, Zhifang Sun also won the Best Individual Trading award.

The competition is divided into four parts: Portfolio Management Challenge, Investment Banking Presentation Challenge, Treasury Challenge and Trading Challenge. The students had one month to prepare for the daylong event, which was held at Temple University on Nov. 13.

“Participants experience an incomparable simulation of real-world trading while demonstrating their abilities to analyze, strategize, make decisions, and give presentations,” according to a description on the challenge website. “They get an invaluable glimpse into the real world of the capital markets as well as true insight into themselves and their suitability to a finance career.”

Blackburn said he was very proud of the students.

“This team, through their hard work, diligence and pursuit of excellence, represents all that I have come to expect from Fordham’s quantitative master’s students,” he said.