Smeal College Students Win International Trading Competition

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (February 27, 2004) – A team of four undergraduate and graduate students from Penn State’s Smeal College of Business recently defeated more than 20 student teams from three countries to win the University of Toronto’s Rotman International Trading Competition. The win marks the second time in less than a year that Smeal students have emerged victorious in a competition of financial market prowess.

Second-year Smeal MBA students Bradley C. Barnhorst and Matthew Shopp, along with undergraduates Sachin Aggarwal and Jay Hammarstedt, finished ahead of students from the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada in the two-day competition on Feb. 20 and 21 at the Rotman School of Management’s Financial Research and Trading Lab.

Each round of the event presented a unique financial case situation and corresponding world and market events to which teams responded with analysis and trading of a variety of products including single stock futures contracts, stocks, and bonds. Other necessary skills included corporate earnings forecasting and the use of financial theory to value and trade multiple options contracts.

Following each round, administrators calculated the cumulative trading profits and losses, with Penn State taking the first-place prize overall with the most aggregate profits. The second- and third-place teams were from Universite de Sherbrooke in Quebec and the University of Reading in the U.K., respectively.

"There were many talented teams at the competition,” said Barnhorst, “but we felt confident in our strategy, which was to maintain an even-handed approach with each case and not to take unnecessary risks."

The trading competition win was Barnhorst’s second in his Smeal College career. Last spring he finished ahead of a field of more than 140 undergraduates and graduates from 42 universities and eight countries in the Global Trading Competition, an online contest sponsored by Smeal and Financial Trading System.

“Smeal finance students have proven that they can take the theory of the classroom and apply it to real-world trading situations,” said J. Randall Woolridge, professor of finance and director of the Smeal College Trading Room. “It’s clear that the Smeal College Trading Room is making a difference in the education of our students.”