Toronto – A team of students from the Master of Financial Engineering program at Baruch College in New York City won the 20th anniversary edition of the Rotman International Trading Competition (RITC) hosted by the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management last week.
In winning the competition for the eighth time, the Baruch College students demonstrated a consistently strong performance across the six trading cases in the competition by placing first in five of them.
A team from the University of Toronto placed second while the University of Calgary placed third. The UofT team consisted of Ramzi Ashqar, Jiayuan Guo, Ethan Lai, and Crystal Zhang, who are all students in the Rotman Commerce program, and Jania Morshedi, an HBSc student in statistics and physics at the University of Toronto Scarborough.
Student traders from undergraduate and graduate programs ranging from business to finance, to science and law, from forty-three universities in twelve countries participated in the competition and used the resources from the Rotman School’s BMO Financial Group Finance Research and Trading Lab (Rotman FRT-Lab), including the RIT Market Simulator, an order-driven market simulator, which was developed at the Rotman School. The teams competed by identifying trading opportunities across a wide range of realistic simulated scenarios.
“The enthusiasm and engagement of everyone involved at RITC made it a truly special event, and it was a great way for the community of RIT users to re-engage in person. I am looking forward to RITC 2025 and seeing how participants continue to advance their decision-making knowledge and skillsets.” says Craig Geoffrey, associate professor of finance, teaching stream, and the academic director of the Rotman FRT-Lab.
“By participating in the competition, participants will be a part of a remarkable community of individuals who share a deep interest in finance, trading, and decision-making, and who are eager to showcase their talents and apply their skills. At Rotman School of Management, we provide learners with the opportunity to showcase their talents and apply their skills.,” said Bachir Chehab, associate director of the Rotman FRT-Lab.
The competition was sponsored by Mathworks, Castleton Commodities International (CCI), Cubist Systematic Strategies, and CCI Learning.
The Rotman School’s BMO Financial Group Finance Research and Trading Lab is designed to promote experiential learning: integrating markets, data and research with practice in making financial decisions. The competition cases are implemented on the highly acclaimed Rotman Interactive Trader application, a market simulation tool being used in 60 universities and financial institutions around the world. The Lab is utilized by classes in many of the Rotman School’s programs, including its Master of Finance, Master of Financial Risk Management, MBA and Rotman Commerce programs. Further information on the Lab is available at inside.rotman.utoronto.ca/financelab.
The Rotman School of Management is part of the University of Toronto, a global centre of research and teaching excellence at the heart of Canada’s commercial capital. Rotman is a catalyst for transformative learning, insights and public engagement, bringing together diverse views and initiatives around a defining purpose: to create value for business and society. For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca.
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For more information:
Ken McGuffin
Manager, Media Relations
Rotman School of Management
University of Toronto
E-mail:mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca