Baruch College Wins First, Second and Fourth Place at Top International Trading Competition
March 4, 2022
At the world’s most premier collegiate trading competition, the academic achievements, analytical skills, and ambitious spirit of Baruch students shined again as three teams finished in first, second, and fourth place.
This victory marks the fifth win in the past seven years for Baruch in the Rotman Trading International Competition (RITC), a rigorous simulated market challenge where students tackle a range of cases including volatility trading, liquidity risk, electricity trading, and algorithmic trading. Baruch bested 53 teams—a record number of participants—representing prestigious institutions from 16 countries on four continents.
The winning team members are: Thomas George, Mohammed Jahan, Yusu Kong, Lingzhi Lin, Zixuan Liu, Shawn Roy, Chaofan Shen, Yurun Song, Jiahao Sun, Zihan Sun, Qiao Wang, and Kai Zhang. Most are enrolled in Baruch’s Master of Financial Engineering (MFE) program, which is ranked #1 in the U.S.
“Baruch students, especially MFE and Financial Mathematics students, are very well prepared for the competition through their coursework,” said head coach Jarrod Pickens, who is also a professor in mathematics. “For example, MFE students take a course in market microstructure models, which helps them understand market behavior. Also, the students give most of their free time in January and February to devote to practicing and preparing and are motivated to match previous successes.”
Dan Stefanica, co-director of the MFE program, said many of the students involved at RITC go on to careers as quant traders. This year’s students are prime examples of that career trajectory as nine will be working at proprietary trading firms such as IMC Trading, Virtu Financial, and CTC, or hedge funds including AXQ Capital, Citadel Securities, and Squarepoint Capital.
Baruch students were able to participate at RITC 2022 with the support of a sponsorship by IMC Trading.
“Baruch Shows Up To Win”
Meet four of the winning team members who spoke to the academic excellence and opportunities at Baruch, and why competing in trading events like Rotman is beneficial for their careers.
Thomas George: “I was thrilled with our collective success at Rotman this year. All the Baruch teams were very strong and consistent across all four of the cases. The Baruch MFE program has a long history of success in the competition and Coach Pickens and Professor Stefanica know how to best prepare our students each year. I was very confident going into the competition and we were able to execute our strategies exactly as we practiced.”
Shawn Roy, a senior studying financial math who also won the 2022 Berkeley Trading Competition involving about 125 undergraduate and graduate students: “Given everyone’s commitment to strategizing and practicing I was not surprised about the overall results. Baruch shows up to win. The undergrad financial math major is a great program that equipped me with the skills to be successful at many trading competitions (Rotman, MIT, UChicago, and Berkeley), and land my dream trading role at Chicago Trading Company.”
Yurun Song: “I think preparing for events like Rotman Trading is really helpful if you want to start your career in the financial industry, as it gives a very good simulation of trading in the real markets. Though they are different in many aspects, the key points are the same: it is all about logical thinking, speed and communication. And there is no doubt that being part of Baruch’s MFE program is beneficial. It provides us with very high-quality courses and very helpful career services, as well as a platform to know more about the finance industry.”
Qiao Wang: “The greatest gift RITC gave me must be confidence. For my future career, I have a strong belief that if I want to achieve something, then make the effort and go for it. I will succeed just like we won Rotman competition this year. I’m so proud of being part of Baruch MFE, as we are equipped with cutting-edge knowledge and we have strong connections with alumni, whose suggestions are very helpful in my future career.”
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