CMU-Q Trading Hackathon tests teamwork across disciplines

The Q-SmartLab Trading Hackathon took place last week, with team Polaris finishing on top. The winning team included Alfred Godwin Ravindrakumar, Anthony Lo and Yijun Dong.

The competition took place over three trials which corresponded to three live trading days at the New York Stock Exchange.

With students representing Business Administration, Information Systems and Computer Science, teamwork across disciplines was key. The hackathon was run on the Financial Trading System’s algorithmic trading platform. Teams created a trading strategy, then programmed in either Python or VBA, in conjunction with Excel.

It was a tight race for second and third place, with the Procrastinators ultimately prevailing over the Freshman Rookies. The Procrastinators included Awais Farrukh Shamim, Faran Farooq, Ahmed Shah, and Maher Khan. The Freshman Rookies were Julian Sam, Amer Ahmad, and Fareeduddin Mohammed.

The two top teams will travel to CMU Pittsburgh, as well as New York City to visit the financial district to observe the day to day operations of the markets.