RIT trio triumphs in global trading challenge

An interdisciplinary team of RIT students won the 2024 Bloomberg Global Trading Challenge in the school’s second year of competition.

Evan Macko (finance), Carter Ptak (software engineering), and Rosa Kauffman (Japanese) comprised the winning “Tigers Trading” team, outlasting a field which included 2,453 teams from 396 universities in 46 countries conducting simulated investing over six weeks.

The team, supported by faculty advisor and finance professor Hao Zhang, came together in 2023 as members of the Financial Management Association, a Saunders College of Business club open to all students at the university.

“This win is a testament to the strengths of our finance programs, Saunders College of Business, and the culture of interdisciplinary collaboration at RIT,” said Zhang, the director of the BS Finance program and MS Finance program. “Our students gain hands-on experience with cutting-edge technologies, and they are encouraged to collaborate with peers from diverse disciplines. This winning team is a shining example of how Saunders College of Business and RIT provide students with a great learning environment that inspires creative minds.”

This isn’t RIT’s first foray in this global trading challenge. In last year’s competition, the team of Macko, Ptak, and Alexandria Walker (computer science) placed first in the North America region, and third overall.

“Carter and I came back to see if we could do better this year,” said Macko, a third-year student from Pittsford, N.Y. “Carter was friends with Rosa, who he asked to be a part of the team. She said yes, and the rest was history.”

“Carter and I had an interesting introduction,” added Kauffman, a second-year student from Baltimore, Md. “We met through an online finance and economy community on YouTube, and we realized that we both went to the same school.”

The Tiger Traders’ winning strategy, in Ptak’s words, was “betting on volatility.” They focused mostly on foreign stocks, which gave them an advantage in this all-or-nothing competition. The trio led virtually from start to finish, standing alone at the top of the standings in five of the six weeks. Given a starting budget of $1 million USD and choosing from around 10,000 stocks in the Bloomberg World Index, they earned a relative profit of $1,676,618.

“Luck obviously plays a large factor,” said the team’s captain, Ptak, a third-year student from Beaverton, Ore. “We could have easily finished in last place. The one strategy we learned last year was to try to make as much money as possible without being concerned about the risks of losing.  So that became the goal this year.  While it’s not necessarily a great strategy in real life, it worked for this competition.”

Trading those stocks, especially Asian stocks, involved spending a few all-nighters at the Sklarsky Center. Luckily, the team had a night owl suited for the task.

“Carter is famous for having a sleep schedule that’s insane,” Kauffman said. “A competition like this was right up his alley. If anything, we had a unique ability to have that time to be open and dedicated to trading, versus teams in Europe or in the Americas who would be in class or asleep at this time.”

The trading challenge is the only university investment competition that exclusively uses Bloomberg Terminals to develop optimized business solutions. At RIT, Bloomberg Terminals are a key resource in the Sklarsky Center for Business Analytics at Saunders, offering industry-standard tools for financial trading alongside the college’s strengths in finance and analytics. In addition, clubs like the Financial Management Association provide an attractive place for students from diverse STEAM backgrounds to explore the exciting world of financial analysis and investment management.

As winners, Bloomberg will give every RIT student free access to Bloomberg.com for a year, normally priced at $149. In addition, Bloomberg Philanthropies will also make a $5,000 donation to be used toward a charity of their choice. While it’s unlikely that this trio will look to defend its title in 2025, as at least one member will be looking to compete instead for co-op placements next fall, the big lessons learned in trading were immense, as all three gained an appreciation for the stock market.

“This competition gave me more confidence,” Evan said. “I’m a trader on the side, so this has given me more faith and conviction in my ideas, whereas before I would get scared out of plays, now I have the confidence to make aggressive, calculated decisions.”

“I enjoy trading, but I’ve also enjoyed thinking outside of the box,” added Ptak. “You don’t win by doing what everyone is doing.”