A team of UNC Charlotte graduate students recently placed sixth in an international competition that tested their trading skills.
Team members Luca Costa, Giovanni Del Ben and Pietro Lami, dual master’s degree students with Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (UCSC) in Italy; and Cody Prentiss and Lilly Su Yeung, are students in the Master of Science in Mathematical Finance. They vied against 386 squads representing 24 countries in the 2021 University Trading Challenge, sponsored by CME Group.
During the competition, students traded futures through a simulated, professional trading platform.
"None of us had ever competed in a trading competition before," said Prentiss, the team captain. "However, all of us come from backgrounds that consist of rigorous curriculums and competitions of different varieties. We would often communicate through WhatsApp and have weekly meetings to discuss strategy and ideas."
He said Yeung's experience with the Nittany Lion Fund at Penn State and through an internship with Bank of America was important to the team's success. Two other UNC Charlotte teams competed and placed among the top 20% of the competitors.
The nationally ranked interdisciplinary M.S. in Math Finance program is offered through the Belk College of Business and the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.