Innovative global markets competition aims to educate and inspire future finance professionals

CHICAGO, Nov. 18, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced the winners of its 17th annual CME Group UniversityTrading Challenge, including the first-place winners from the University of Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia. They are the first team from Latin America to win the global challenge.  

This year's competition saw participation from more than 500 teams, made up of more than 2,000 graduate and undergraduate students from more than 30 countries around the world. The free, four-week trading competition is open exclusively to teams of currently enrolled students, offering them a chance to learn hands-on techniques for trading futures across all major asset classes on CQG's real-time simulated electronic trading platform. Throughout the challenge, students also learned about market events by accessing live Dow Jones newsfeeds and The Hightower Report. 

"Our annual Trading Challenge is an opportunity to educate the next generation of finance professionals about the importance of derivatives markets in the global economy," said Anita Liskey, CME Group Senior Managing Director of Corporate Marketing and Communications. "Collaborative, online learning experiences are more important than ever in today's virtual environment, and this year's strong turnout was a testament to that. We are proud to facilitate a unique platform for thousands of students from all over the world to apply what they learn in the classroom to real-world challenges."

"We would like to congratulate the winning team and honor all students who participated in this year's Trading Challenge," said Ryan Moroney, CQG's President of Europe and the Americas. "CQG remains committed to educating the next generation of derivatives traders. Just like many professional traders, the competition offers students the ability to make trading decisions based on real-time data from CME Group, combined with CQG's analytics, real-time news feed and commentary, and executed with CQG's premier trade routing technology."

"This victory is a source of great pride for the University of Antioquia, and we hope it will contribute to increase the international reputation of Medellín as a South American center of innovation," said Professor of Physics Antonio Enea Romano, faculty advisor for the first-place team. "This is our second year participating in the challenge, so we were able to leverage our previous experience and grow from our mistakes. We are proud to have the opportunity to show how versatile and successful students with a physics background can be. You don't need a finance degree to understand global markets, especially with so many educational tools and resources available."

Students on the following top five winning teams are eligible to receive a cash prize and are invited to attend a one-day, virtual market education conference in December.

CME Group is committed to educating the next generation of finance professionals on the significance of its global derivatives markets and risk management. In addition to interactive events like the University Trading Challenge, CME Group partners with other industry organizations to offer educational tools, such as Futures Fundamentals, a one-stop educational resource that explains the role of futures markets in everyday life. The goal of the site is to make financial education an engaging experience for anyone, regardless of how well versed they are in the world of finance. Teachers can also find ready-made economics curriculum and online modules to help teach middle and high-school students how derivatives work through Discovery Education's Econ Essentials.

As the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals.  The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex® platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform.  In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing.  With a range of pre- and post-trade products and services underpinning the entire lifecycle of a trade, CME Group also offers optimization and reconciliation services through TriOptima, and trade processing services through Traiana.

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and, E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc.  NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.  COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec, EBS, TriOptima, and Traiana are trademarks of BrokerTec Europe LTD, EBS Group LTD, TriOptima AB, and Traiana, Inc., respectively. Dow Jones, Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and S&P are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC, Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and S&P/Dow Jones Indices LLC, as the case may be, and have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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SOURCE CME Group