Students from The Willink School in West Berkshire took first place in the ICMA Centre’s first Sixth Form Trading Competition held on Tuesday 10 July 2012.

The team of three beat out 16 other teams of students from around the region to win a generous cash prize for themselves as well as an iPad for their school’s economics department. Students from Herschel Grammar School in Slough and Ousedale in Milton Keynes were second and third place respectively.

The competition was a simulated trading session based on specific scenarios that were generated by the competition organisers. It was run entirely on the ICTrader trading platform which was co-created by 7city and the ICMA Centre. Students traded a variety of US stocks in real time with the prices of the stocks evolving rapidly in connection with the scenarios, so while realistic, the news that the competitors saw on their screens, and the relevant price changes that occurred were not a result of what was happening in the real markets on the day. Some of the companies traded included Google, Apple, Bank of America, Delta Airlines, Domino’s Pizza, Coca Cola, General Dynamics, Phillip Morris and Verizon.

The competition was run across two rounds, one where students made as many deals as they could against simulated counter parties (investment banks and individual or institutional clients) and the second where they dealt with each other as if they were part of a stock market trading pit. Each team was awarded points for their performance in each section of the competition with a maximum of 18 points available to the best placed team. The winning team was those who gained the highest points across both rounds of the competition. The winners from The Willink School were very impressive, being consistently at the top of the leaderboard throughout the day.

The competition proved to be a highly energetic and stimulating day and already we have schools lining up to come back and make more great trades in the 2013 competition.

Three of our graduating students last week had further reason to celebrate as they became the 2012 recipients of three exclusive ICMA Centre awards.

Ahmed Olaitan Banu (pictured with Professor Charles Sutcliffe, Head of School), who graduated from the MSc Investment Management on 5 July 2012, was the recipient of the annual Vetiva Prize. This unique award presented to the best graduating African student was established by one of the ICMA Centre’s alumni, Dr Olaolu Mudasiru, who graduated from the ICMA Centre in July 1998 and is now Deputy Managing Director of Vetiva Capital Management Limited in Nigeria. The prize includes £1000 as well as a job opportunities with Vetiva and other Investment Banking firms operating within the African continent.

Dr Musasiru said of the prize, ‘We hope that Vetiva’s undertaking to recognise and modestly reward excellence will be a contributing factor in motivating individuals to reach within and bring our the very best that they have on the inside.’

Two other awards were also presented at the Centre’s annual post-graduation celebration. Ben Mowbray received £500 and was awarded the ICMA Centre Academic Achievement Award – BSc for the highest overall average within the BSc Finance and Investment Banking. At MSc level Surasak Ritthongpitak, a graduate of the MSc Financial Risk Management won the £250 prize and the ICMA Centre Academic Achievement Award – MSc for his outstanding results.

‘Each year the standard of academic achievement by all our students makes the decision on who wins these awards harder,’ said Professor Adrian Bell, Head of Pre-Experience Postgraduate Programmes for Henley Business School, ‘and we know that this also reflects well on their future career prospects with employers seeking out high achievers to join the leading firms around the world.’

The weather was just perfect on Thursday 5 July 2012 for the ICMA Centre’s graduation ceremonies.

Over 300 students from the ICMA Centre graduated and now join our almost 3500 strong global alumni community that includes over 125 nationalities and reached 115 countries around the world.

Congratulations to all of our graduates and we hope you keep in touch via our LinkedIn and Facebook accounts.

A full gallery of images (including those found here) can be seen on our Facebook page.