Published: Dec. 4, 2019

A team of undergraduate students from the University of Colorado Boulder—two from the Leeds School of Business—won this year’s prestigious and $2,000 in cash prizes each. The nationwide competition featured teams from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Simon Fraser University and the University of Texas-Dallas. Students from Boulder’s winning team included William Sun (󾱲’21), John Palmer (Fin’21) and Harrison Pearl (Econ & Chemical Engineering’22). This is the second year in a row that this student team has taken first place in a trading-related competition. In 2018, they won the nationwide CQA (Chicago Quantitative Alliance) Investment Challenge.

CME Group, a global markets company, hosts this annual electronic trading competition, which challenges teams of undergraduate and graduate students to trade live data in a simulated environment. They begin with an account balance of $500,000, and at the end of the four-week competition, the team with the highest account balance wins top prize. Boulder’s team increased their account balance to $1,436,925, more than $170,000 above the nearest competitor.

Live case competitions like this one are an important part of the student experience at Leeds School of Business. Working in teams builds essential interpersonal skills while exposing students to real-world business situations in highly competitive settings.

“I would encourage any student who is interested in trading to participate in competitions,” said Sun. “I think trading in the financial markets is the most competitive game in the world. Going head-to-head against other students around the world can make it even more exciting.”

Sun was also grateful for the mentorship he received from Leeds’ Burridge Center for Finance Executive Director Roberto Caccia, Director of Leeds’ Honors and Scholars programs Darrell Zechman, Leeds’ Senior Instructor for Finance Daniel Brown, Trent Ambler from Trepco Capital Partners, and Jon Tesseo, managing director and head of Quantitative Research Portfolio manager at Signal Analytics. Their advice, he said, was invaluable.