UTM students share winning investment strategies at stock trading competition
What would you do with six weeks and $1 million? U of T Mississauga’s top commerce students shared their top tips at the recent closing ceremonies of the 2015 Undergraduate Finance Competition.
Starting with $1 million virtual dollars and an investment strategy, students had six weeks to put financial theory into practice, competing to see which trading plan proved most successful in two trading categories—portfolio and foreign exchange. Contestants made virtual trades using Interactive Brokers, a financial training program that lets traders see how theoretical investment strategies perform using real-world financial data.
“This competition is vital for students to safely experience the market, and provides a structured opportunity to connect classroom theory to real-world practice,” says Andrew Graham, lab manager at the Li Koon Chun Finance Learning Centre. “Good corporate finance begins with good personal finance, and this competition acts as a gateway for students to experience the results of both good and bad decisions in the market.”
The competition was presented by the Student Management Association, the Undergraduate Economics Council and the Undergraduate Commerce Society, with financial and technical support from UTM’s Institute for Management & Innovation and the Li Koon Chun Finance Learning Centre.
As part of the competition’s closing ceremonies, the top five portfolio traders and top three foreign exchange traders defended their investment strategies and trading results to a panel of financial experts that included Bogdan Blaga (CIBC), Jeff Collins (RBC), Heather Richardson (TD) and John Rego (RBC). The panel judged the five-minute-long presentations on how well they communicated their investment plan, return on investment and how successfully the strategy connected to the portfolio’s performance.
Matthew Ackers took top prize in the foreign exchange category, followed by Shahlar Mammadov and Chun Yau. Zeerack Izhar, Daniel Strezelec and Soban Arif in the portfolio category. Winners of the competition traded their virtual dollars for real ones, with four contestants taking home cash prizes ranging from $150 to $500.
See photos from the competition here >
Image via UTM Undergraduate Economics Council