Market volatility adds excitement to Stock Trading competitions

Students from across campus took part in the 2nd Annual Merrimack Madness Stock Trading Competition while finance students competed to earn the greatest returns in the first-ever offering of the Merrimack Investment Fund challenge.

Last week concluded the Merrimack Investment Fund challenge as well as the second installment of the Merrimack Madness Stock Trading Competition which was started last year.

The Merrimack Madness event was a school-wide investing competition which utilized a stock market simulation to mimic the true capital markets. There were three brackets in which students could compete, depending on major: finance; non-finance business majors; and non-business majors. Three winners from each bracket were selected and received cash prizes with 1st place receiving $750, 2nd place receiving $500, and 3rd place earning $250. Alongside the cash prize, each winner was given $250 to designate to the charity of their choice. First place winners in the finance division, Alex Gorgoni ’17 and Mattia Lanzi ’17, gave a brief presentation on how they achieved their investment returns in such a brief time horizon utilizing options and actively-traded securities to gain profits from market volatility.

Other winners in the finance division included Derek Petti ’18 and Juan Meza ’18.

In the business division, winners were Ryan Wine ’17, Lars Sund ’19, and Grace Messina ’17.

In the division for non-business majors, the winners were Joanna Haswell ’17, a Human Development major, Sergio Martinez ’19, Mechanical Engineering, and Josue Ruiz ’17, Civil Engineering.

Following the presentation of the winners of the Merrimack Madness competition, the winners of the 1st Merrimack Investment Fund challenge were crowned. This event was similar to Merrimack Madness but required teams to follow a strict investment policy and hold regular meetings to discuss investment strategy. PJ Sullivan ’17 spoke on behalf of his winning team to discuss how they approached the competition using a top-down process, taking into account the US presidential election, the rate outlook of the Federal Reserve, as well as other macro trends.

The competitions were sponsored by the Mucci Capital Markets Lab with a donation from Paul and Joyce Mucci, who were in attendance at the event. Not only did this event conclude the various competitions taking place this semester, but it was also the last meeting of the academic year for the Merrimack Financial Group.

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