I just came back from Houston from the NYMEX OpenOutcry competition. This was phase 2 of the NYMEX Commodities challenge 2008. Earlier in the day, they announced the results of phase 1 which was the desktop trading event. I was part of the team that won first place in this event.
The OpenOutcry is a totally thrilling, totally exhilarating experience, where traders trade in a pit like in the real world. In this individual competition, 66 participants competed in round 1. (with 10 from UTD). 4 out of the 10 UTD students made it to the 2nd round (Marc, Jason, Josh and myself). I improved gradually and i thought i did really well in round 2. I executed my market orders and my sell limit orders. One of my buy orders did not execute as the market did not move to my buy price. However, I made a lot of trades on my own account. At the end of round 2 eliminations, UTD had 3 members standing (Josh, Marc and Jason). I was shocked to know that i was eliminated. However, I was happy that 3 of my buddies were still in the competition. Round 3 went off well. After a prolonged meeting and discussion over eliminations, Josh missed out on a marginal call. Josh excelled in his first ever attempt in this competition. Marc and Jason made their previous years’ competition experience count and made it to the top 20 winners of the Open Outcry. UTD did not win a spot in the top 5 and rankings from 6 – 20 were not revealed. However, Jason and Marc won a cash prize for being one of the winners in the event. Seeing Jason and Marc in action, one felt they would make perfectly good real world traders pretty soon ( if they want to). A word of thanks to our FMA President Jason, for helping organize the trip down to Houston and putting up all the students at his family house.
All in all, this has been a fantastic and successful experience for everyone involved. I am sure everyone learnt a great deal participating in this event. We met with several Corporates who were excited and keen to learn more about the UTD Programs. Resumes of participants were published i a resume book that was handed to each and every sponsor.
