Last week, a team of four BI students flew to sunny Rome and had the opportunity to put their classroom knowledge of dynamic stock market environments to the test. The second RETC took place Thursday 25th to Saturday 27th August at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome. The BI team was joined by 28 teams of Master students from around Europe for a three-day simulated stock market.
The four students put on their trading hats and surpassed 15 teams from European universities, winning 13th place.
- RETC gives an opportunity for our top students to test and sharpen their finance skills while competing against a large set of teams from other European schools. It is a great opportunity to promote one’s resume, to expand knowledge of finance through training for the competition and competing and an opportunity to represent BI at the same time. I am personally very pleased about the team of four taking up the challenge to compete in Rome this year, says Associate Professor Janis Berzins, one half of the duo coaching the BI team.
BI won the first RETC, held in 2012, for consistently performing the best in different simulated environments.
In the limelight
The BI team this year were Margaryta Kazakova, Veronika Hoff, Stig Bordvik and Anmol Juneja. The four students come from Masters in Finance and Siviløkonom at BI and were selected individually by Professor Bruno Gerard and Associate Professor Janis Berzins.
- As representatives of Norway we stood out as we are the only team not from the EU. So the announcements were often “28 teams plus Norway”. It puts us in the limelight but at the same time puts some pressure us, especially since BI won last time – but given the context of competition then this is just positive, says team member Anmol Juneja.
Participating students are required to put together trading strategies for a variety of dynamic market scenarios, effectively execute a plan, and generate profits under those conditions.
- On the first day, we had one event where we had to trade on the floor and shout loudly to buy and sell. The experience is impossible to describe, as it was something from the good old trading days. With computers taking over the whole finance market, we are lucky to experience this traditional type of trading, concludes Anmol Juneja.
The BI team were up against 28 teams from prestigious European universities and to beat 15 of them is an achievement the team are proud of.
- I am happy with the results as Norway was not actually invited until a couple of weeks ago, so we had limited time to practice. Overall, I had a blast, got to know students from other universities in the EU and lastly, got to see Rome, if only for a couple of hours. I would definitely do this again!, concludes team member Veronika Hoff.
About Rotman European Trading Competition
Cases at RETC are designed to teach students about different asset-pricing and trading strategies employed in the real market, where any possible sequence of events can happen.