Babson Undergrads Beat All in International Trading Competition
A team of Babson undergraduate students won the Rotman International Trading Competition (RITC) held Feb 19-21 at the University of Toronto. The team included seniors Howard Soyfer(Cedar Grove, NJ), Gilbert Li (Flushing, NY), Serge Suchkov(Staten Island, NY), and junior Eric Drozdov(Staten Island, NY).
From left: Gilbert Li, Eric Drozdov, Professor Ryan Davies, Howard Soyfer, Serge Suchkov
The Babson team placed ahead of teams representing 38 top colleges and universities from around the world. Their first place cash prize is $4,000. The top five teams were:
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Babson College
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Dublin City University (Ireland)
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Penn State Smeal College of Business
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Ohio State Fisher College of Business
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ICMA Centre, University of Reading (UK)
Traders competed in four simulated trading cases, which closely mimic different aspects of real-world markets, including the BP Commodities Trading case. For this year's event, a new credit-risk trading case was developed, which exposed students to the dynamic world of fixed-income trading. Visit their website at http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/finance/lab/competitions-itc09-home.asp to find a description of the competition.
The 3-day competition is hosted by the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. Babson’s participation was made possible with financial support of its Stephen D. Cutler Center for Investments and Finance. Babson placed 2nd and 7th in this competition the previous two years.
“I am extremely proud of the hard work and dedication of the team,” said faculty advisor and assistant professor of finance Ryan Davies. “The team spent several weeks preparing for the competition, developing sophisticated models for each of the four main trading cases: sales and trading, quantitative open outcry, commodities, and credit risk. A key component of the team's success was their ability to work together under pressure, and their consistent performance across multiple intense simulated trading rounds.”
