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2007 Interactive Brokers Collegiate Trading Olympiad

Joined
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We had a student in second place during last competition (with a cool $25K to boost). https://www.quantnet.com/threads/bharath-govindarajan-wins-25-000-in-trading-olympiad.19/
The link to the list of winners and the competition rules is http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/general/education/IBTradingOlympiad.php

I'm interested in trying for this year competition and I hope to find many others who are interested in doing so. I have talked to Frank about this and I think he is very interested in learning more about this. Hopefully together we can gather info, brainstorm and come up with good ideas...
 
I'M IN!!!!

Should we go as a team or individually?
 
No teams allowed. Only individuals :cry:

Let me find out more details.
 
I have NO INTEREST in creating an automated computer program that will allow me to sit back and watch as it makes me money :)
 
Are u sure about that Frank??? :roll: I don't mind you designing one making money for me. lol

Count me IN, always interested in trading, and automated trading is something novel to me, like to take on the challenge. ;-)

And it would be great if we can snatch all the top prizes, guess what that would do to our schools reputation :cool:
 
im sure you all know this...but I was 100% kidding with my first post. i am fascinated by the concept of automated trading.
 
I'm glad to see lot of interest in this. I'm always interested in doing any kind of competition, especially those with money prize involved :D
Seriously, I'm not sure if we can repeat or one up Bharath Govindarajan's performance but I'm sure we will learn much in the process.
With team not allowed, we can always brainstorm together and implement the ideas individually. The more Baruch students enter in this, the more chance that we will have someone winning some kind of prize....
I agree with stockjini that if we snatch all the top prizes then it would be tremendous for the program's reputation. You can have a free dinner with Baruch president and some bragging rights. :lol:
If you look at the winners last years, the top MFE programs (CMU,NYU,Columbia,Standford, UCB) do not have any winners.
 
andy said:
If you look at the winners last years, the top MFE programs (CMU,NYU,Columbia,Standford, UCB) do not have any winners.


...and this could mean...tons of possibilities:
1. top school people only have beautiful hats these days
2. they are too busy to notice other people or activities
3. they entered the competition and lost terribly
4. schools like Baruch should be included in the NEW top list
5. they have spent more time with their families and friends
6. (left to your imagination) :?:
 
Trades must be generated by computer algorithms. Students will compete using the same Interactive Brokers' Trader Workstation Application Program Interface (API) that professional traders use to create automated trading solutions. A multitude of programming languages including Java, C++, C, and Visual Basic may be utilized with our API. Student algorithms may trade US stocks, options, futures, Forex, or bonds as often as their programs require over the contest period. There is no cost to enter and participate in the Olympiad.

Trading will commence on Monday January 23, 2006 at 12:01 AM (Eastern Time) and will run for 10 weeks concluding on Friday March 31, 2006 at 11:59 PM (Eastern Time).


So it looks like we will need to use their API to design our program. They strongly encourage automatic trading and you can see in the result list that the student # 21 even got a higher profit than most other students but still received less prize money because he got so many TWS (I think it's manual trading). So the trick is to have faith in your model and let it run and not jumping in when the profit is not so high :). I think this is also why Bharath Govindarajan won 2nd prize.
Looking at the timeline, we should have until Jan 2007 to prepare our model and then it will run till the end of 3/2007. The model with highest profit win $50K and they will donate $50K to the school.
 
DOES ANYONE KNOW ....
1. how many people entered and actually finished the competition?
2. how many schools and countries were represented?
 
Bridgett said:
DOES ANYONE KNOW ....
1. how many people entered and actually finished the competition?
2. how many schools and countries were represented?
1.If I remember correctly, there is a student in the Baruch program that actually works for Interactive Brokers. That's how our program comes to know about the trading competition (it could be why not many people from top MFE programs knew and took part last year). This is about to change this year. :lol:
Interactive Brokers hopes to get more publicity for their trading software (and more clients) so they are doing this :D. So we need to use their API, their demo trading system to test.
We at Baruch have a trading floor so we should take advantage of it. Somebody please ask Dan to hook us up with Prof. Richard Holowczak at the Wasserman Trading Floor/Subotnick Center.
2. This is open only to North America so only students from US,Canada and Mexico can participate.
More info here http://www.quantnet.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=193
 
Interactive Brokers Olympiad Details And Trading Rules

The following summarizes the rules that will govern the Olympiad. The rules and terms governing the Olympiad are more fully set out in the Student Participation Agreement that each Student shall be required to enter into with Interactive Brokers.

1. Entry in the Olympiad is only open to the following persons in the United States, Canada and Mexico: (1) any graduate student with an undergraduate degree in computer science or engineering; (2) undergraduate seniors majoring in computer science or engineering; and (3) graduate students majoring in computer science or engineering. Entries are limited to one per student.

2. Students are required to write a trading plan. All trades must be made through an automated system utilizing Interactive Brokers' Application Program Interface (API). Trades may be based on any combination of technical or fundamental data and the plan should discuss these algorithms. Each student's plan should be about a page in length, and should discuss the market(s) traded, product(s) traded (i.e., stocks, options, Forex, etc.) and trading strategy employed. Plans should be submitted to Interactive Brokers no later than Saturday December 31, 2005 11:59 PM (Eastern Time). Any student, whose trades are not in conformity with their filed trading plan, as determined by Interactive Brokers in its sole discretion, will be disqualified. All algorithms must be planned, designed and written solely by the student participating in the Olympiad.

3. Each Student's plan must be his or her own work and not infringe upon or plagiarize the works or intellectual property rights of any third party. Interactive Brokers will be given the right to use the Student's submission, including all intellectual property contained therein, for any and all purposes. Ah...disclaimer here!!!

4. Student's account will be credited with $100,000 in phantom money at the beginning of the competition and Student may make as many trades as desired over the ten weeks that the competition will run. IB's standard commissions and market data fees will be debited from the account. Corporate actions and dividends will be applied. Students may trade any combination of US products (i.e. stocks, bonds, options, futures, commodities or Forex) that are available from Interactive Brokers. Trade executions will be simulated based on actual real-time quotes and size in the markets.

5. The change in account equity will be used to determine the ranking of each individual student, and the change in account equity averaged across all students under the supervision of an advisor will be used to determine each school's posted website ranking.

6. No live help desk support will be provided. Students can use Interactive Brokers' reference materials at http://www.interactivebrokers.com/ to answer all questions. Problems may be sent to ibtradingolympiad@interactivebrokers.com and will be answered as soon as possible.

7. Prize money will be awarded to the individual winners and may not be shared by them with others. There will only be one first place prize. In the event of a tie or other deadlock with respect to any prize, the total prize money available for such prize shall be distributed equally among the winners identified by Interactive Brokers at that prize level. Interactive Brokers shall make all decisions with respect to eligibility, participation and prize awards. Failure to comply with any part of the rules by a student will disqualify the student from the Olympiad. Under certain circumstances Interactive Brokers reserves the right to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the competition.
 
hey frank, sorry that i mis-read your line, but hey, you really got me thinking :lol:
 
Program Trading Powers Student to Top of Class - Barron's

Check out this weekend's issue of Barron's - there is an article "Program Trading Powers Student to Top of Class" - it is all about the 1st place winner of the 2006 contest.
 
This Olympiad is a lottery. The perfect trading algorithm will make a guaranteed certain amount of profit with minimal risk. The rules require us to make the most amount of money for the short period of time. So we have to gamble, i.e. we have to pick up one of the riskiest stocks or futures and make a bet that it will go up or down. If our guess is correct than we will make a lot, if not - we will lose a lot  That's why so many "losers" on the previous Olympiad I guess.
 
maxrum said:
This Olympiad is a lottery. The perfect trading algorithm will make a guaranteed certain amount of profit with minimal risk. The rules require us to make the most amount of money for the short period of time. So we have to gamble, i.e. we have to pick up one of the riskiest stocks or futures and make a bet that it will go up or down. If our guess is correct than we will make a lot, if not - we will lose a lot  That's why so many "losers" on the previous Olympiad I guess.

That is true but this is an algorithm by a computer so there should be some rationale on the algorithm to make those bets. It is not a person who is making the bet but a computer program. So you are not "blindly" betting.

If you think about it. The winner have to come up with a strategy that will make him/her the most money on a 10 week period at the begining of the year. Taking those things into consideration, the strategy can change. You don't have to make money in the long run but only in that period. That's how I think we should look at the problem. Just my 2 cents.
 
It could be nice to see Bharath Govindarajan's algorithm to have an idea how it works. By the way, he mentioned that he did not make any corrections to his initial strategy during 10 weeks period, so it was planned well from the beginning. :)
 
Someone asks me how I got the article titled "Program Trading Powers Student to Top of Class" that Frank mentioned through Google cache.
Here is how it works.
I know that the article is for Barron's subscribers only and I know it's on their website because I searched for it on Google and the article turned up but required an account.

So I turned to Google's cache which is the best and worst about anything online.

1)go to www.google.com
2)Focus my search only on Barron's site by using site: filter.
3)Type in the search box Program Trading Powers Student to Top of Class site:barrons.com
4)You should see only 2 results. The second one is the one we are looking for.
5)Do not click on the second link. If you do, it will lead you to Barrons site which requires a login.
6)Look at the bottom, you will see Cached, Similar pages, Filters. Now, click on Cached.
7) Voila. You should be able to read it now. If you can't follow my instructions, here is the direct link

Disclaimer:
Q:If you think this is illegal?
A:No. What are you reading is on google's site. You are not reading Barron's content with a hacked login or anything.
Q:Why I can do this? Is it Barron's content is for paying customers only?
A:Thanks to Google. Barron does not know how to protect its content, so be it.

Google-bot is extremely powerful. They are searching billions pages everyday. For example, google bot visit our website almost several dozens times a day.
Does it mean whatever you post here will show up on Google?
Yes and No. We have certain sections of this forum where it's public (anyone can read without loggin in) i.e General Info, Quantnet Social Hub....anything under the Main Section. We want people to find out about out program from Google or Yahoo so I have to open certain sections so that info can be indexed. It means you should post in the right forum all the time.

All other sections (Refresher, Required classes) will require a log in. When google-bot tries to search those forums, it will be directed to out log in page....

That said, be aware of Google. :D

I hope this info will be helpful for everyone because information is power.
 
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