CME Group Announces University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Wins 15th Annual Trading Challenge

CHICAGO, March 22, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced the winners of its 15^th annual CME Group Trading Challenge, including the first-place winners from The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV).

This year's competition saw participation from more than 500 teams, made up of more than 2,100 students from 37 countries around the world. The four-week electronic trading competition is open exclusively to teams of currently enrolled graduate and undergraduate students, offering them a chance to learn hands-on techniques for trading futures across all major asset classes on CQG's real-time professional trading platform. The trading challenge also helps educate the next generation of finance professionals on the significance of CME Group's global derivatives markets.

"Our annual Trading Challenge is a great opportunity to educate the next generation of finance professionals about the importance of derivatives markets in today's global economy," said Anita Liskey, CME Group's Senior Managing Director of Corporate Marketing and Communications. "We're pleased to see thousands of students from all over the world continue to participate and learn about how to trade futures across all major asset classes."

"We would like to honor the winning team and congratulate 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 futures traders by providing university students from around the world with the opportunity to make trading decisions based on real- time data from CME, combined with a real-time news feed and commentary, and executed with CQG's premier trade routing technology." 

"All my students are excited about the victory – and not just the members of the winning team," said Bruno R. Arthur, Ph.D., Lecturer II in Economics & Finance at UTRGV and faculty advisor for the first-place team. "The Chair of the Department of Economics & Finance, Dr. Andre Mollick, and I are both pleased and proud. We've participated in the Trading Challenge for many years since it's a great complement to our teaching of financial economics and microeconomics in the classroom. We're grateful for the continued support of CME Group, and we look forward to encouraging our students in the Challenge in the future."

Students on the following top five winning teams will receive a cash prize and are invited to attend a one-day market education conference at CME Group in early April.

CME Group provides a wide range of risk management education. In addition to interactive events like the 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.

Students learned about market events by accessing live Dow Jones newsfeeds and The Hightower Report.

As the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, CME Group (http://www.cmegroup.com/) is where the world comes to manage risk. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes, including futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals. Around the world, CME Group brings buyers and sellers together through its CME Globex® electronic trading platform. CME Group also operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers through CME Clearing, which offers clearing and settlement services across asset classes for exchange-traded and over-the-counter derivatives. CME Group products and services ensure that businesses around the world can effectively manage risk and achieve growth.

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex and E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. CBOT, Chicago Board of Trade, KCBT and Kansas City 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. 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