DeGroote traders take third in international competition

[img_inline align=”” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/RITC-team-2007.jpg” caption=”DeGroote students Neil Johnson, Richard Howard, Keith Foo, and Ryan Goulding placed third in the Rotman International Trading Competition.”]The DeGroote School of Business claimed third place in the recent Rotman International Trading Competition (RITC). The trading team made up of MBA students Ryan Goulding and Keith Foo and undergraduates Neil Johnson and Richard Howard beat 32 teams from universities in North America, Europe, Australia and China who competed in the three-day competition.

“McMaster and DeGroote seek to provide students with a total educational experience to better prepare them for their professional lives,” says John Siam, director of the Gould Trading Floor and assistant professor of accounting & financial management services. “We should all be proud of Ryan's, Keith's, Neil's and Richard's great accomplishment. The spread between first and third was only 1.4 points out of a possible 100, so the competition was very close.”

RITC uses simulated trading cases that closely mimic different aspects of real world markets. Teams participated in two outcry competitions complete with a boisterous trading pit, a sales and trader challenge where they had to accept or reject orders based on their ability to profit from them, and an arbitrage pricing competition where teams had to estimate what a stock should be worth and, if the market price was below this actual price, capitalize quickly.

“Dr. Siam's trading class gave us a glimpse into the fast paced world of stock trading and we were all hungry to test our skills against the best in the world,” says Howard. “This experience is something that you can't really appreciate from the theoretical curriculum in school.”

During the challenges, the team had to adapt to the cases as they unfolded. During one task, information was released intermittently rather than all at once as the teams expected. The DeGroote team quickly changed their model to work with the case and capitalized on teams who were trading blind.

“Every trader there was out to win,” says Johnson. “It was an
aggressive environment where you would quickly be taken advantage of if you made a mistake.”

With a field made up of top international schools, the DeGroote team knew they were up against stiff competition.

“There were many very intelligent people there, representing the top students from each class,” says Goulding. “I believe our success came from our ability to execute as a team.”

And team work is what all of the members take away from the competition.

“If you had asked me this before the competition [why I liked trading], I would have talked about the intricate interplay in the markets, the competition and the essential zero-sum game,” says Foo. “But today my attitude is quite different. I still feel the same way about the markets but my answer would be the relationships, the bond and the trust that you build with the people on your team. Something magical happens when you put four guys together on a team who are insanely passionate about a single goal. It's hard to explain and can only be experienced to understand.”

Concludes Siam, “No one person is responsible for this accomplishment. It is a testament to our collective input as faculty and to the hard work of our students.”

Rounding out the top three were University of Calgary with first and Babson College of Massachusetts in second.