Podium finish: TRSM student takes first place in national trading competition

Maxwell Carr, a fourth-year economics and management science student, is the first student to win the Biggest Winner Trading Competition, beating out 2,000 other competitors including professional investment traders.

The seventh annual competition (external link) , sponsored by investment firm Horizons ETFs and National Bank Direct Brokerage, is an online simulated trading competition that happens in real-time.

Launched on May 8th, participants, made up of both aspiring and professional investors, were given a fictitious amount of $100,000 to open up a simulated brokerage account. They used these “funds” to trade any combination of some 500 exchange traded funds listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, from simple stocks to physical commodities such as gold or oil. The goal? To get the biggest return on their investment in just six weeks.

Shortly after Carr entered the competition, he quickly rose up through the ranks.

“I knew I had to choose volatile commodities to generate a [high] return,” said Carr, who will be graduating in October. “Luckily I had been studying the oil markets so this just happened to align with a time of volatility. I elected to follow the political atmosphere as short-term changes are linked primarily to fundamental short-term shocks in the economy, in my opinion.”

Carr’s instincts proved to be right. At the close of the competition, he placed first with a nearly 16 per cent return on his performance. More than half of the participants posted negative returns, as that time period was particularly volatile on the markets.

The student won first place, earning $7,500 in cash prizes and an additional $500 in a weekly prize. The runner-up won $2,500. Dimitry Zaytsev, one of Carr’s classmates, also competed and placed 7th overall in the final rankings.

 “In my opinion, it would be very difficult to generate a return [like Maxwell’s] without considerable investment skill. These are the type of returns that would earn Bay Street traders million-dollar bonuses,” said Mark Noble, senior vice president and head of sales strategy at Horizons ETFs Management (Canada) Inc. “Success in investing does not come easy, but with proper educational footing in key investment concepts, students like Maxwell can be just as successful as the Bay Street pros.”

This was not the first time Carr came out on top in a trading competition. Earlier this year, the student placed first in the Montreal Exchange Options Trading Simulation, beating over 1,100 teams and winning $10,000.

As for his career goals, he is very interested in working in the financial sector, preferably in an investment or trade setting. “Winning these two competitions proves I’m definitely on the right path. I think the greatest advantage of studying economics is an overall understanding of the underlying fundamentals of an economy.”