Joon, Win, and Yisze from Class of 2020 participated in the final round of the Yale Stock Trading Game Competition hosted by GNAM!
In this competition, over 531 students registered and 306 students from 12 GNAM partner schools participated. From Hitotsubashi ICS, 11 students participated in the regional competition held on February 3, and the above three students made it to the final round held on February 17. Only one third of the 306 participants passed to the final round.
This competition used Yale's Stock Trading Game, which is a fun, fast and efficient tool to understand the mechanics of capital markets and stock trades.
At Hitotsubashi ICS, Professor Masa Hattori was the faculty advisor and held a kick-off meeting with prospective participants on January 6 to strategize how to win the competition until the actual event.
In this blog article, we asked the three students who successfully made it to the final round about their impressions of the competition!
Joon
The Global Network Stock Trading Competition was an experience to remember. Masa Hattori, our leading professor, and the winning 11 team members spent time as a whole to study the mechanics of the game and also the theories required for us to perform better.
The actual game was very interesting in two ways. First, the lagging condition of the server didn’t allow us to react directly to the change so we had to predict other players move ahead which was very difficult. The second interesting characteristic was that we got a glimpse of the final value by spending resources (money). Allowing us to get a clue seemed more easy compare to real stocks, but it was more difficult than real stocks because the information was shared with all the players making the competition for certain stocks even higher.
To overcome such competition, my strategy was to focus on the second best stock. Less competition allowed for less amount of resources needed. Also, shorting the bad stocks and using the money to focus on good stocks was crucial.
Overall, the experience of a virtual game was amazing!! Hoping that our lessons from today will serve as a foundation for the final stages and for the years to come!!
Joon is a South Korean, who worked in Accounting & M&A fields for 10 years.
The Yale Stocks Trading game was a simulation of the market, particularly how investors react to new information. The simulation is a zero-sum game where you try to make gains in the expense of others’ losses using access to information and speed.
At the start, everyone starts with the same portfolio of 4 types of stocks and some cash. Players can trade normally like in stocks exchange without commission, and can choose to buy private information at cost, which allows you to better judge the underlying value of the stocks. The winner is decided based on the final underlying value of portfolio rather than the final market trading price. The catch here is that throughout the game, the value of stocks will change and the game will also publish some public information, revealing what the values of those stocks may look like. The fastest to react, and in the correct direction, will gain the most.
My strategy is to buy private information at the start, enough to estimate the underlying value. Then I would try to get rid of the low-value stocks and accumulate the highest value stocks. However, at this early stage, values can change, so you don’t want to put all in one stock. Also, because you can go into debt and short stocks, using these means will get you slightly higher returns than average if you use them to buy/short the right stocks.
Win worked in an investment bank in Bangkok for a short time before spending a few years working in Digital Consulting in London.
Yisze
I do not have much experience trading stocks thus the game was a new experience for me. That said, joining the Global Network Stock Trading Competition with the Winning 11 team was really enjoyable. Instead of competing against one another, the ICS team members tried to help one another. We also received guidance from Masa sensei and our team leaders, Linda and Viola, including organising a trial game before the competition. The game is a simulation of capital markets where players try to maximise portfolio wealth. Despite some connection issues, the game offers insight into the interaction between players and the mechanics of stock trading. I made guesses about the stocks’ underlying values based on “peaks” – information of the stocks’ values – that we can buy during the game. Overall, I had a good time participating in the game with fun classmates and am looking forward to more activities with MBA Class of 2020 in the future.
Yisze has experience in banking and finance. She worked at a bank in Malaysia before coming to Hitotsubashi ICS.
You can also find a general report on this competition at the following link:
Hats off to everyone who participated in this competition!!