ICMA Centre announced as top European school in Financial Trading Competition

The ICMA Centre has proved that it is one of the top finance schools in the world, coming joint 4th out of a field of 44 international schools in the 2010 Rotman International Trading Competition held at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. This result is in line with the ICMA Centre's track record of finishing in the top 10, and usually top 5, in all previous Rotman competitions.

The team of four traders - Ioannis Oikonomou, Dimitris Korovilas, Aditya Pandit and Juan Cepeda Murcia - beat a veritable who's who of corporate finance schools to take joint fourth place. Top place went to MIT while the closest European university was Luiss University which came 30th, and the next UK school was CASS Business School which was ranked in 33rd place.

The competition involved a series of different assessed cases that required trading either in an electronic environment or in the trading pit. Competitors had to trade a variety of financial instruments including corporate bonds, energy futures, stocks that were simultaneously traded in different markets, and futures on a stock index.

"As recent events in world markets have shown only too clearly, skill and competence in trading and analysis are critical both to success and to survival in modern markets. This result shows that our graduates are among the best in the world and that the time and effort invested in our dealing rooms and our trading simulation software (ICTrader) was well spent - to the benefit of us and future members of the finance professions," said Dr Michael Smith, dealing room director at the ICMA Centre.

"Making it to the top of the competition requires a very diverse set of skills. One has to be numerical enough to create the appropriate pricing models, and strategic enough to find the most efficient ways to trade," commented Ioannis.

"Being in the trading pit during the quantitative outcry session and trading against 87 people from top schools, some of them with significant trading experience, was like being thrown into a pool of sharks," added Dimitris

About the ICMA Centre
The ICMA Centre at Henley Business School, University of Reading has an international reputation for being the premier institution in Europe for academic and executive education for financial markets, including finance degrees and studies into investment management. Established in 1991 with funding provided by the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA), the Centre is housed in a purpose-built modernist building with state-of-the-art facilities including three dealing rooms. The Centre recently opened its new extended facilities including an additional flagship 40-seat dealing room equipped by Thomson Reuters.

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