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An Investment Odyssey: The Gains of Avant-garde Traders at HKU

Home » Student Stories » An Investment Odyssey: The Gains of Avant-garde Traders at HKU

An Investment Odyssey: The Gains of Avant-garde Traders at HKU

Muhammad Hussain, Shah Jahan Ishaq, and Hassan Ali Naeem’s story
Faculty of Science, Faculty of Engineering
BSc(ActuarSc), BEng(CompSc), BSc(ActuarSc)

Can undergraduate students rival postgraduate students? You may think the latter with greater experience will compete much more effectively. However, the following story may redefine your answer to this question. An ambitious group of science and engineering HKU students, still in their freshmen year last year, joined the CASH Algo Trading Challenge 2023, in which their strong dedication and innovation of fresh perspectives brought them the Overall Champion award as well as two silver awards, namely Best Return and Best Sharpe.


The team attended the CASH Algo Trading Challenge 2023 award ceremony. (From left to right: Shah Jahan Ishaq, Muhammad Hussain and Hassan Ali Naeem)

It all started with the team’s initiative in experimentation. While all three of the group were committed to a full-time summer internship back then, they still managed to join this international algorithmic trading competition, venturing all the way in rounds of ideation, testing, and competing steps. The valuable takeaway was the practicality of doing heavy-lifting parts of monitoring the market, analyzing the mathematical indexes, and applying risk management knowledge. More rewardingly, the process was much accelerated and strengthened in contesting with the pool of more than 500 participants originating from over 15 countries, while some even possess years of working experience.