Trading Competitions

The Capital Power Trading Competition is the first event of its kind at the Haskayne School of Business. Unlike other student trading competitions in North America, this trading challenge is focused on energy trading - measuring kilowatts flowing out of the grid across hydro, solar, wind, and hydrocarbon power.

What makes this competition different?

• Custom Energy Scenarios: Prices shift dynamically with weather patterns and breaking news, simulating real-world volatility.
• Python Integration: Students will code algorithms in advance for the Algo2 Case, then deploy them live during the competition.
• Unique Case Design: Afternoon trading sessions run in 6 x 15-minute intervals, using a brand-new model built just for this event.

Who can compete?

Open to all University of Calgary students, including business, engineering, economics, mathematics, and science faculties.

Prizes

• 1st Place Trader: $2,000
• 2nd Place Trader: $1,000
• 3rd Place Trader: $500

Faculty Leadership

Guided by Dr. David Alexander, with support from Francisco Castillo.

bp Canada is the long time presenting sponsor of this annual trading competition. Prizes for 2025 and 2026 are being significantly increased, to support student competitors as well as first time student competitors. Previously student prizes were $1000 for the top trader and $1000 prize for the top rookie. 

Prizes

• Top Trader: $2,000
• Second Place Trader: $1,000
• Third Place Trader: $500
• 3 Top Rookie Prizes - $500 each. 

This competition uses our Haskayne license to the RIT software to simulate trading environments in stocks, commodities, futures and derivatives. The RIT software also has extensions to trade physical goods (crude oil, gasoline) as well as the assets used to manage these physical goods (storage, refineries and pipelines). 

bp Canada will be sending traders to observe the students, provide strategic and execution suggestions and to introduce them to aspects of the trading industry that they could find in their organization.

Competition is Open to All University of Calgary Students

The competition is sponsored by bp Canada and the Haskayne School of Business, but is open, to any University of Calgary student. We have had competitors from Haskayne, Engineering, Economics and several other Faculties.

bp Competition Cases and Support Documents

Currently the following four cases are used in the competition:

• Price Discovery 0, PD0. Traders use private information and combine it with public price information to make trading decisions.
• Commodities 1, COM1. Traders use public information on, supply and demand to trade crude oil to speculate on a futures contract.
• Contango, F2. Traders arbitrage price differentials in crude oil spot and futures contracts.
• Commodities 2, COM2. Traders use public information about storage and usage of natural gas to speculate on futures contracts that expire in July.

The RITC is a worldwide trading competition hosted by the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.  From the Rotman website:

“The Rotman International Trading Competition (RITC) is an annual event that brings teams of students and their faculty advisors from universities worldwide to participate in a unique 3-day simulated market challenge.

Teams are invited to participate in various activities including electronic and outcry trading cases, seminars with industry practitioners, and social events with their fellow competitors from around the world. In past years, RITC participants have competed in a diverse range of cases including open outcry, options, liquidity and algorithmic trading. Faculty advisors are invited not only to coach and observe their teams, but also to participate in various workshops on the Rotman Interactive Trader (RIT), the software used to run the competition.

RITC is consistently innovating, bringing new developments to its own competition with each successive year. Each year classic cases are re-vamped and new cases are added.

The competition has grown not just in scope, but also in international exposure. Last year, RITC hosted 52 teams from 52 different universities from Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. The global representation grants a valuable opportunity for like-minded future finance professionals to meet their peers from across the globe. “

The teams for this event are selected based on trading performance and teamwork in weekly practices that commence prior to the bp Energy Trading Competition and continue through the WITC. The team is selected after the WITC.   At the start of the winter term practices are held weekly up to the competition which is held during the third week of February (Winter Reading Week).  A Gold and Red team are selected but we have only been able to send two teams once to in-person events. 

Practices are conducted using simulations on the RIT Server in the Lab.  Case files are modeled after cases that have been historically run at RITC.  In the week prior to the competition Rotman organizes practices that allow registered schools to compete against each to gain a sense of what that year's competition will include.

Historically markets were driven by open outcry sessions.  To be noticed traders wore bright colorful jackets.  Team Calgary members at RITC are readily identifiable by their Gold trading jackets. When we were able to send a second team they wore Red trading jackets to complement our school colors of red and gold.

We are very grateful for the assistance of bp Canada in acquiring a license to use the RIT Software for the September competition and subsequent practice. All the top teams at RITC trained on this software prior to the competition, so having the software was critical to our success.