Editor’s Note: This article was updated on 24 November 2021
Two student teams from Khalifa University competed against more than 495 universities in the Bloomberg Trading Challenge, investing non-fiat US$1 million in trade currency to buy and sell stocks and other commodities over the course of the 7-week competition.
We are so proud of our KU students for participating in this challenge, which is based on a real-world investment environment using the popular Bloomberg Terminal platform. Through their dedication and strong team cooperative spirit, and by leveraging the skills they’ve acquired from either business or math courses at KU, our teams performed extremely well and gained a strong understanding of real-world trading.
The team with Faculty Advisor Dr. Ricardo H. Archbold, Assistant Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences, includes the following members:
- Team Captain: Zehara Ali, BSc in Biomedical Engineering
- Cidrik Mulugheta, BSc in Chemical Engineering
- Hamad Alblooshi, BSc in Mechanical Engineering
- Khalid Adam, BSc in Chemical Engineering
- Tiemar Semere, BSc in Computer Engineering
The second team with Faculty Advisor Dr. Giorgio Consigli, Associate Professor of Mathematics, and supporting advisor Dr. Jorge Zubelli, Professor of Mathematics, includes the following members:
- Team Captain: Bruno Nunes Costa, PhD student
- Omar Forrest, PhD student
- Iman Chaabi, BSc in Mathematics
- Haya Mayoof, BSc in Mathematics
- Mohammed El Amin Azz, BSc in Mathematics
At the end of the competition, Team Captain Zehara placed 50th, while Team Captain Bruno placed 77th, out of 496 total competing universities. While in the Middle East/Africa Regional competition, Team Captain Zehara placed 6th and Team Captain Bruno placed 8th. This is particularly impressive considering that most of the team members do not have a strong knowledge of finance or trading.
The students used the same type of terminals and data information that is available to real investment banks and financial exchanges. They gained the knowledge of how to access financial information and determine the economic trends that affect stocks and other commodities and exchanges across the world. Profits and losses were determined by the real-world performance of these financial instruments. The teams had to indicate the strategy they used to determine the trades.
Participating students became certified on the Bloomberg Terminal, which gives them a competitive advantage in the job market post-graduation.
Erica Solomon
Publication Senior Specialist
9 November 2021
