OSU tops in real-world finance competition

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Oklahoma State University has earned top team and individual honors in the New York Mercantile Exchange Magazine Commodities Challenge.

The competition is designed to give students a real-world experience by conducting daily trades as a team and participating as individuals on a trading floor.

As advised by Tim Krehbiel, a finance professor in the Spears School of Business, OSU's team left the other competitors far behind with a cumulative profit realized from trading a crude oil futures contract over the contest period March 1 through April 8. Each team was given a $100,000 mock account to start trading.

Krehbiel, who limited himself to the role of advisor during the competition, is applauding the efforts of OSU’s team, which consisted of Arun Aravind, Michael Benien, Ken DeBell, Gena Duvall, Craig Harryman, Abhishek Hirpara, Russell Knox, Sang Jin Lee, Ramnik Sachar, Michael Wolfe and Jeremy Wright. 

OSU was the only university in the competition to earn a profit. The trading team's first-place finish earned them a $1,200 prize.

“I’m very proud of the way they devised and implemented their trading strategies and managed the necessary record keeping,” Krehbiel said. “The organizational aspects led to many good teaching opportunities for me,”

Benien won the second or individual phase, known as open-outcry trading floor competition. Aravind was also among the finalists in this contest phase held at the University of Houston on April 16. Benien was awarded a $1,000 prize and an internship at the New York Mercantile Exchange for his efforts. The contestants used the techniques of futures market floor traders to complete orders through the open-outcry system.