Undergraduate Blog / Defining Your Babson

Rotman International Trading Competition

Post by Elena Yang ’20

Representing Babson at the Rotman International Trading Competition (RITC) in Toronto was one of the most memorable weekends of my life. To give some background, RITC is the world’s largest 3-day simulated market challenge in which we trade cases such as BP Commodities, MATLAB Volatility, and Schonfeld Algorithmic trading against over 50 universities from all over the world. My teammates James Jackson, Meiwei Luo, Mohnish Mehta, Victor Gomes, and I spent months preparing models to help make better trading decisions in an uncertain environment. Because we were using a simulation trading software, the action of any trader around you could dramatically affect the price of the security. Thus, you can only imagine how dynamic and energetic the environment was that we were in. At times, you would hear continuous mouse clicking and students yelling to their teammates about a weather forecast and how they should go long on heating oil. Other times, the trading lab could be completely silent with everyone focusing on the volatility of a security and trying to get in at the right second to capture the mispricing of an option. It was safe to say that we learned much more about the market microstructure and trading practices through this hands on experience. In the end, we placed 2nd in S&P Quantitative Outcry, 5th in BP Commodities, and 13th overall.

Although we learned so much from trading these intricate and technical cases, I would argue that we learned just as much from the other competitors and sponsors. When we weren’t trading, we were attending presentations by firms such as British Petroleum to see how we could apply our knowledge to the real world markets. Then in the evenings, we were at socials and mingling with like-minded students from countries such as England, Ireland, and Australia. Overall, we had an amazing time at RITC and we are thankful for the support from the Undergraduate Professional Fund Accelerator.