Baruch College Hosts First-Ever Alumni-Student Trading Competition

Championship-winning Students and Alumni Team Up for Simulated Market Challenge

March 15, 2018

The inaugural Baruch Alumni-Student Trading Competition was held on March 10 where Baruch College alumni teamed up with current undergraduate and graduate students in a simulated market challenge. The event was hosted by Baruch College’s Subotnick Financial Services Center in collaboration with the Office for Alumni Relations.

The students who competed at this event were selected by Professor Jarrod Pickens, a mathematics lecturer who recently coached several trading teams to success. Many of the event participants, called “trading whiz kids” by the Wall Street Journal, are Bachelor of Science in Financial Mathematics or Master of Financial Engineering Program students who battle at national trading competitions such as the Rotman International Trading Competition, Traders@MIT, Datathon, the International Association for Quantitative Finance competition, and the University of Chicago Midwest Trading Competition.

“The competition was an opportunity for alumni to meet with the championship-winning students that have put Baruch’s name up in headlines, and to have some fun competing alongside them,” said Trevor Moores, director of the Subotnick Financial Services Center. “Events that bring alumni and students together can often be inspiring for both sides, and we intend to run the competition again next year.”

The competition took place in The Wasserman Trading Floor, which has 55 workstations that provides access to key trading software including Bloomberg, FactSet, and S&P Capital IQ.

Winning Teams

Each student who finished in first, second and third place at the Baruch Alumni-Student Trading Competition respectively earned a Baruch scholarship for $1,000, $750, and $500. Additionally, each student and alumnus who worked on a winning team was given a trophy. The top-three teams were:

First place: Jonathan Kay (MBA ’89) with students Yinheng Li (’18) and Bell Chen (’19)

Second place: Carl Schmidt (MS ’10) with students Harish Reddy (’18) and Thomas Maltese (’20)

Third place: Leslie Seff (MBA ’80) with students Raymond Wong (’18) and Suguru Kaneda (’19)

Connecting Alums and Students

Janet B. Rossbach, director of alumni relations and volunteer engagement at Baruch College, is excited to make this competition a traditional event. “The Baruch Alumni-Student Trading Competition was a wonderful way to engage a diverse group of alumni with a common passion for trading and being active members of the Baruch community,” Rossbach added. “It was a great example of how we are developing new means for our 140,000 alumni to engage with the College as mentors, speakers, volunteers, and contributors to today’s student experience.”

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