Team CUHK Takes Home the Championship at 2019 CUHK-LSEG Trading Competition

2019 CUHK-LSEG Trading Competition - Award Winners

Two postgraduate students from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Business School grabbed the First Prize at the 2019 CUHK-LSEG Trading Competition. Hosted by the Department of Finance at CUHK Business School with the support of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) and software provider Interactive Brokers, the inaugural competition invited students from three top-tier local universities including The University of Hong Kong (HKU), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), and CUHK Business School, to participate.

A total of 122 teams of over 200 undergraduate and postgraduate students were admitted to join the two-round trading competition held between 23 September and 18 October 2019. The team comprising Ms. Maria Sbarbati (Master of Science in Finance) and Mr. Hiep Vu (Master of Science in Business Analytics) from CUHK Business School beat the rest of the contestants and emerged champion at the competition.

In each round, the participating teams had to maximise their profits through buying and selling various securities admitted to trading on the London Stock Exchange including equities, international order book (GDRs), fixed income and ETFs. After the first round, the top five teams from each university proceeded to the final round.

Group photo
2019 CUHK-LSEG Trading Competition - The group photo
Champion team
2019 CUHK-LSEG Trading Competition - The champion team
Cover Photo
2019 CUHK-LSEG Trading Competition - Award Winners
Special bonus team
2019 CUHK-LSEG Trading Competition - The Special Bonus prize winner

Held at CUHK Business School’s finance trading lab, the fifteen finalist teams executed an exciting 30-minute final round of trading before the top three and the special bonus prize winners were announced. All finalists were presented with award certificates.

The winning teams were:

  • First Prize: Ms. Maria Sbarbati (MSc in Finance) and Mr. Hiep Vu (MSc in Business Analytics) from CUHK Business School
  • Second Prize: Mr. Mok Ka Ho (BBA in Finance, and in Information Systems) and Mr. Wong Wai Hung (BBA in Operations Management, and in Marketing) from HKUST
  • Third Prize: Mr. Ngok Yuen Chung (BSc in Actuarial Science) and Mr. Yan Tsz Ho (BSc in Actuarial Science) from HKU
  • Special Bonus Prize: Ms. Ko Wai Mei (BBA in Finance, and in Information Systems) and Ms. Wong Wing Lam (BBA in Finance, and in Information Systems) from HKUST

The prize for the champion team is a sponsored trip to attend an insight week at the headquarters of the London Stock Exchange, while the second prize team won an opportunity to attend the LSEG Greater China Conference in Beijing on 5 November 2019. Meanwhile, the third prize and special bonus prize teams won entry tickets to the LSEG International Investment Forum in Hong Kong.

Prof. Seen-Meng Chew, Associate Professor of Practice in Finance at the Department of Finance, and Associate Director of MBA Programmes at CUHK Business School remarked, “This is our first time partnering with LSEG to organize a large scale trading competition involving three universities, and the participation rate had been overwhelming. Through a real-life trading platform, students had a chance to apply theories they learnt from classrooms into practice. Our partnership with LSEG and other leading institutions in the industry will create tremendous opportunities for our students.”

Prof. Joseph Cheng, Chairman of the Department of Finance at CUHK Business School which sponsored the prizes, concluded, “We have invested significantly into our financial trading lab, and students had the opportunity to use resources available at the lab including Bloomberg, Reuters and Mergent Online, to perform stock research and analysis during the competition. We will continue to invest in modern infrastructure that will complement our first-class finance programmes to provide the best learning experience for our students. Congratulations again to the winning teams and I wish all participants every success in their future careers!”

CUHK Business School would like to give its special thanks to Mr. Marcus Van Abbé, Head of Business Development APAC at LSEG, who worked tirelessly to ensure the success of this competition. We also like to express our gratitude for Ms. Charmaine Lo, CEO of Actelligent Group, and Mr. Frank Ho and Mr. Walter Cheung from Contrendian, for providing support to participants throughout the competition.