UQ students trade their way to third place in international finance competition

A team of commerce students from The University of Queensland has placed third in an international trading competition held in Canada earlier in the week.

While their compatriots were competing for gold at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the team from UQ Business School outscored top North American teams from Chicago, Penn State and Northwestern universities to secure a spot on the podium in Toronto.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Babson College, both from the United States, won first and second place respectively.

The competition, hosted by the University of Toronto and now in its seventh year, has teams trade shares, corporate bonds, gas futures contracts and index futures contracts in five separate heats.

This year saw the introduction of a high frequency trading heat, in which trading is executed entirely by a computer algorithm written by the participants.

The UQ team of Sarah Thorne (Taringa), Alexandra Dwyer (New Farm), Jeremy Evans (St Lucia) and Tom Lawler (Graceville) finished inside the top ten in three of the five heats.

The team’s strong finish builds on the success of previous UQ Business School teams that placed sixth in 2007 and eleventh in 2009.

Media: Tim Coles (07 3346 8070) or Cathy Stacey at UQ Business School communications (0434 074 372).