Learning Summary of Past Activities
Aside from studying, I personally joined a few activities and competitions hoping to gain more experience. I met many great minds from these activities and definitely broadened my horizons. I hope I could challenge myself in different aspects and explore my boundaries. With effort, I have a strong belief that this can develop my hidden talents and provide me with a unique experience to further explore myself.
Team, Society and Community (swipe right for more photos)
>> Redbird Racing (EVRG)
My teammates taught me many design and hands-on skills to construct a formula racing car. You can usually learn a lot from other ideas and you will be shocked that there are many talented people in the world. It was so satisfying to make a working racing car. Even before entering the university as a freshman, my friend and I went into Yuen Long Vehicle Garage to start making the basic car parts. There are many industry leaders/ professors/ deans coming and sharing knowledge. After all, I have learnt that every person has their own roles to play, and are indispensable like a car can not miss a drivetrain or cooling system or wheel.
>> Society Sub-Committee
University is not only about studying but also about gathering with friends. Being part of the Society gave me a great time when I was a freshman. We ate and played sports together to keep a 'study-life' balance in this new environment.
>> Redbird Leadership Program
I learned a lot of soft skills ranging from speaking skills, time management and goal-setting methods, to ways that I can contribute to society. The trainer will also meet with each of us individually to talk about our reflections and see our progress. Each session on Thursday night rewarded me a lot mentally and I met people with different mindsets. This helped my other two voluntary programs.
Case Competition/ Hackathon (swipe right for more photos)
I played a few case competitions and hackathons. Here are the main ones:
>> Fidelity Innovation Challenge
We proposed a sandbox RPG game targeting Generation Z. This is so that Fidelity can go with the trend of digital transformation and grow the AUM easily. We were quite lucky to get 1st runner up as our team started making the PowerPoint in the last week. I spent days and nights making the PowerPoint with photoshops of the demonstration, financial modelling and video editing.
>> Bain Cup Case Competition
In this case competition, I improved my Powerpoint making skills as there were a lot of requirements of font size/ max number of charts. We had to propose some strategies for a Non-Cola Carbonated Beverage Company to grow its share. We had to face 644 teams from Overseas, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing. It is never easy to do market analysis, strategy making, risk and financial modelling. After getting 400+ interviews from China (Data dashboard: HERE), Consumer Profiling could be done and we found the key purchasing criteria. After further research, the market analysis could be finished.
Utilizing the machine learning model, research papers, creative minds, and one teammate's IBD experience, we gave 4A strategies on the Supply chain, Firewheel Channels, Products, and M&A with all-rounded support on the implementation plan.
Moreover, it was super valuable and surprising to have the judge's feedback one week after the competition, suggesting our ideas were too complex in many aspects and we needed a better storyline for the presentation.
>> Asian Development Bank Covid 19 Hackathon
Working with a start-up and seeing ideas from different places across the globe, I learnt that an idea should be simple but effective and pain points focusing. Our solution is 'Reset' which provided a series of tools to reduce the possibility of Covid19 infection for travellers. This solution for border reopening is now adopted by many governments when resuming normal life.
>> Citadel APAC Datathon
A dataset of European football data was given. It had around 1400 European football teams/ clubs, past match details, betting details and results from 2008 to 2016, and attributes of footballers spanning 11 countries and leagues.
We saw that betting randomly (assuming 10% of total capital only) over a period of time would result in a 95%+ loss in total. We discussed the data schema and aligned on an approach. Machine learning was used to holistically identify the characteristics (important features) that made teams or clubs most successful and attained a positive Sharpe ratio of betting football matches. (Report: HERE)
Trading and Investing (swipe right for more photos)
I love trading as the results are immediate, and you will know right away if your strategy is working or not. Also, trading allows me to have an exciting day. Every day is dynamic and different. Trading keeps giving me new challenges and this taught me to keep calm. People will always wonder why I am so calm when facing some big moment, my answer is that I am following my plan, letting the profit run and having a defined risk before entry.
>> Yahoo Investment Game/ Joint University Investing Game/ Credit Suisse Investment Challenge
I scanned stocks by fundamental or event-driven or pattern recognition bot. Afterwards, using technical analysis, strategies on the index and options probability of expiring cone as my entry and exit. After analysing the trading plan, I will just execute and stick with my plan. Being diversified is a means to reduce my risk and increase the Sharpe ratio.
>> Jane Street Electronic Trading Competition
We market made ADR, Bond and ETF. Each round of 5 min had to match with another team and 1 computer. With the time limit, we just used some simple strategies, mostly hedging on 1 side and getting the orders filled on another side and converting back to risk-off. Originally we were keeping number one with our bond strategies, but we struggled to execute our ADR strategies and dropped in position. We then realized our mistake and started to increase the edge and chase the lead, but it was too late. However, it was a truly nice game to learn about market making and we did enjoy the process!
>> Amplify Trading Global Trading Competition
After introducing our fund, asset allocation based on the Macro environment and our methodologies with backtesting. We were selected to the grand final out of 700 teams and played a game on the buy-side and sell-side. For the sell-side, unwinding the position promptly and offering an optimal spread for the buy-side to earn but not discouraging them to take the offer. For the buy-side, it is important to follow the companies' fundamental changes and the macro environment.
>> Rotman International Trading Competition
It is my honour to take part in this competition. Seeing many graduated students from many prestigious universities, we knew that it would be a hard game, but we were not discouraged. As a first-year team, we had no idea of what the cases were about in the first week. We talked to another university's advisor to know more about this competition. It comes with 4 areas which are liquidity, electricity, option volatility and algorithm trading. We were having meetings every day on the coding part and cross-university practice together. For option and algorithm trading, we came up with many strategies, yet they were not super profitable in backtesting (forward testing) with different methods like Volatility Smile, Vanilla Option, Straddle, Iron Condor, etc. in the game, which demoralised us every time, yet we never gave up and kept redoing and improving our models based on profitability and stability. We had to burn the midnight oil for special practices on top of the competition. This was because of timezone differences. We focused really hard to overcome tiredness and worked through the night. In fact, we were over the moon making profits and never stopped talking the whole night.