Trading Challenge puts a spotlight on young trader talent

Inaugural CMC Markets University of Canterbury Trading Challenge puts a spotlight on young trader talent

Auckland, New Zealand – Wednesday 24th October, 2018

CMC Markets’ inaugural University of Canterbury (UoC) Trading Challenge has come to an end, with third-year Finance and Economics student Kyle Louis taking out the top spot ahead of more than 100 other participants.

The four-week challenge is designed to give students the opportunity to gain risk-free, first-hand experience in real financial market trading, as they compete to deliver the greatest return on investment (ROI) on a NZ$10,000 virtual demo account.

The UoC leader-board was remarkably tight throughout the competition and into the final week, with students experiencing major volatility as the ripple effect from US China trade tensions was felt across the world markets. Students across the board favoured foreign currencies (in particular NZD/USD and NZD/AUD), gold, silver, indices (S&P500, NASDAQ, Dow Jones, German DAX) and US equities.

Kyle attributed his 119 percent ROI to a global macro investment strategy, which saw him trade on a number of these key macroeconomic events, “I made a considerable profit by going long on the S&P 500 after the Federal Reserve increased their rates, causing the index to fall. I bought after the announcement in hope that it would bounce back, and fortunately it did!”

“The key learning for me was how much people can under-estimate the role that emotions play in a competition like this. You assume that because you're trading with a demo account it won't matter if you lose money or make a bad trade - but it affects you more than you realise. It’s so important to keep your emotions in check!” says Kyle.

Competition runner-up was third year Finance, Taxation & Accounting student Chris Wakefield who achieved a 96 percent ROI. In third place, with a 49 percent ROI, was Aynaz Nahavandi, currently studying his Master’s degree in Applied Finance and Economics.

Chris Smith, General Manager at CMC Markets New Zealand, says, “Congratulations to everyone who took part in the inaugural UoC trading challenge. It was a fantastic competition, and the extreme market volatility we saw during that final week certainly made it an interesting one. We hope the challenge was an invaluable learning experience for all participants, and are very much looking forward building on that with next year’s competition.”

Mark Carrodus, finance lecturer at University of Canterbury, says “It was great to see such a strong competition in its first year, and such a high level of engagement from participants. For many of our students the challenge is a unique opportunity to trade and experience the markets first-hand, offering invaluable insight into the way they work that you don’t always get from theory alone. Here’s to a bigger and better competition in 2019.”

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