FCBE team finishes 13th in the Bloomberg Trading Competition

For release:  May 15, 2017

Recently a team of FCBE students ranked in the top 5% in the Bloomberg Trading Competition (BTC). The team ranked 13th place, relative to 265 contestants from 81 schools. The team members are Dylan Ledbetter, MS Information Systems, MSBA Finance; Zachary Golden, MS Information Systems; Yi Lu, Ph.D. candidate; Zachary Morton, MSBA Finance; and, Lokesh Chinthala, MS Information Systems, reserve member.

The Bloomberg Trading Challenge, or "The University Challenge" was an eight-week trading simulation, in which 265 teams, each composed of five members competed for the highest absolute return on an initial notional portfolio of 10 million USD. Contestants submitted trade ideas on a notional network given the following ground rules: buy and hold positions, only (no shorts, options, etc.); equities limited to companies of U.S. domicile (no ADRs); and the companies must be valued over $1 billion USD. From start to finish, the team submitted 188 Trade Ideas under these parameters, and we landed at 13th place at the conclusion of the Challenge with an absolute return of 3.75%.

I know that many students from our college share my gratitude for the fine facilities and resources provided through the Cook Trading Lab—Bloomberg and Oxford Analytica, among them. Here at the Cook Lab, we benefit from a certain synergy between finance and technology that is reflected in our core curriculum. This connection is the key to our success," said Dylan Ledbetter, team member.  "On behalf of our team, we offer sincere thanks to Mr. Cook and all of our benefactors."

"We are delighted to see University of Memphis students actively participating in national and international inter-university competitions and demonstrating their talents by standing out as winners and leaders," said Dr. PK Jain, interim-chair of the Department of FIR.