Roksana Brzoska, a Swedish economics student has beaten hundreds of rivals from dozens of universities across Europe to win The EXANTE League.
The inter-university trading competition in association with Warwick University, was set up by students Armaan Chadha and Joseff Evans, and is sponsored by EXANTE.
In spite of only 13 per cent of women being approved by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for trading roles in the last year, Ms Brzoska proved that women are just as interested as men in trading and says that the contest was “the most amazing experience”.
She was in the top three for the majority of the two week contest and says that she changed her strategy towards the end in order to secure the win.
“My strategy was super focussed at the end of the competition so I really liked that feeling that I had in the end. When I learned I was a leader it was good for me, but at the same time when I saw that one of the other leaders disappeared from one day to another, I got a bit scared and realised I needed to stay calm and not rush,” shes says.
She adds: “I had exams during the contest, so my time was pretty limited. Therefore, when I was trading I was applying the indicators that I knew and when I was convinced in which direction the market will go, I was placing the bets. I didn’t have any expectations.
“I was trying to use stop and loss, so that I didn’t have to take care of it all of the time. I wouldn’t call it a perfect strategy as it was a little messy. In the end it worked out for me since I won, so I can tell it worked,” she continued.
Anton Iospa, Marketing Director at EXANTE, says: “We realise that the industry is male-dominated and we hope that this contest will go a long way to encouraging more females to get involved in trading and pursue a career in it. There’s no reason why females cannot exceed in a trading career and Roksana is proof of that. According to statistics, just over a third of finance and economics undergraduates are female. Therefore, we believe that the gender gap in trading will soon be closed.”
The contest has more than a dozen top universities taking place from England and across Europe with hundreds of students trading on the EXANTE platform. The competition which runs for just two weeks gives students who may or may not already have experience in trading, the chance to experiment and learn trading without the risk of risking their own money! They each get €100,000 with the winner securing £150 from EXANTE and a paid internship with Amplify. The two runners up get €100 and €50 respectively.
Within the contest EXANTE provides live quotes on US exchange-traded stocks. This is pretty rare in the trading world as usually real time quotes are only available for real account holders due to the charges involved.
“It’s worth trying because you’ve got nothing to lose,” says Ms Brzoska.
Mr Chadha says: “The benefits you gain go far beyond joining any traditional platform company students can join online. Also, the data you get can be shown to employers and these have been valued by those such as Morgan Stanley.”
“We were delighted that students from over a dozen universities competed in our first league this year in the inaugural inter-university competition. We have coordinated and liaised with universities right across the UK and beyond, and it was wonderful to see the feedback from the first contest (US Markets) being so positive. Many societies have recognised that the EXANTE League is an invaluable experience for their members,” says Mr Evans.
Mr Evans hopes that the competition will come to be recognised as a “leading inter-university contest, particularly in the sphere of finance and trading.”
