The Rotman International Trading Competition has pioneered unique trading cases that stress different challenges faced by traders. Last year, we were proud to showcase the Sales and Trader case on top of the Open Outcry, Quantitative Outcry, and APT case. This year will include the Open Outcry, Quant Outcry, Sales and Trader, and BP Commodities Trading case.
All RITC cases are designed to allow for variation in results, regardless of the inputs. That is to say, the models that drive the cases are not deterministic. However, our observation in the past has been that the teams that prepare the most ahead of the competition generally achieve the best results.
Social Open Outcry
The Social Open Outcry will be the first event held at the competition on the evening of the 21st. Designed as an "icebreaker" event, everyone, from sponsors, faculty and students get a chance to trade and get a feel for the competition's outcry trading model. Everyone will be trading a single index futures contract, with a live news feed that impacts the underlying index and consequently, the futures price.
Open Outcry
The Open Outcry market will be the first scored event held at the competition. Similarly to the Social Outcry, everyone will be trading a single index futures contract. A live news feed will affect the underlying index and consequently, the futures prices. Participants will be able to trade futures contracts with one another via an outcry system.
The purpose of the outcry case is to give participants a chance to experience the frantic ambience of an actual outcry pit, and to understand some of the basic relationships between spot and futures markets. Past competitors have regarded our outcry cases as the most entertaining aspect of the competition. Certain non-trading related issues such as team communication and team identification have led competitors to create complex signals and wear distinguishing attire. Students will take turns being analysts and traders in this case.
Quantitative Outcry
Once traders get accustomed to the process of outcry trading, they will get a chance to put their trading, analytical
and communication skills to the test. The quantitative outcry case will follow a similar form as the first open outcry case,
except the information structure will be different. Instead of getting qualitative micro and macroeconomic news that affects
the index, traders will be given quantitative data that fits into a factor model.
Weeks before the competition, students will be given a historical time-series of economic data and index levels for the simulated economy. This case stresses the ability to statistically analyze this time-series in order to determine the sensitivity of the index to each factor. During the outcry case, news releases will announce realized and forecast economic data that can then be used to forecast future index levels in real-time. Teams are expected to have excel models prepared ahead of time and will be able to use laptops to calculate and project future index levels. Students will take turns being analysts and traders in this case.
Sales & Trader
The Sales & Trader case stresses the on-the-spot decision making process that liability traders must execute when competing to fill orders arriving from buy-side institutions. Traders will transact multiple securities on an electronic market with one another, in an attempt to generate the most profits from liquidity trading and commission based order filling. This case will be broken up into two heats with two representatives from each team competing in each heats.
