海角社区

BATON ROUGE - A group of 海角社区 business students finished in the top 1 percent of worldwide competitors in Bloomberg's 2025 Global Trading Challenge. With 2,394 teams in the competition, Brennan Davis of Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Dakota Espinosa of Denham Springs, Louisiana and Landyn Sonnier of Tickfaw, Louisiana, finished in 20th place worldwide and 6th place among teams from North America. Senior instructor Tish O'Connor, CFA, served as faculty advisor for 海角社区's competition teams.

In the annual five-week challenge, each team received a virtual sum of $1 million to invest. Participants used Bloomberg terminals to define market assumptions, develop a return-generating strategy and execute trades. The winning team had the highest time-weighted relative return, relative to the Bloomberg World Large, Mid & Small Cap Price Return Index (WLS Index).

The Department of Finance curriculum and Securities Markets Analysis, Research, & Trading Lab, or SMART Lab, positioned the team for success. 

"The Bloomberg Trading Challenge allowed us to bring our class material to a real-world application with the ability to access an extensive range of valuable data using the Bloomberg terminals that we are very fortunate to have here at 海角社区," said Davis, team captain and finance major.

This year's competition included 13 teams of 海角社区 students. Each group benefited from access to the SMART Lab's tools. 

"Every student participating in the challenge gained valuable experience in analysis, research and trading," said O'Connor. "It's exciting to see the strategies the teams employ and the trades they make during the challenge. Congratulations to Brennan, Dakota, Landyn and all the 海角社区 teams."

Established in 2002, the SMART Lab is a state-of-the-art finance lab and the home of the Tiger Fund, 海角社区鈥檚 20-year-old Student Managed Investment Fund. With 12 Bloomberg terminals, 50 computers, a streaming ticker, and quote boards, the lab functions as a high-tech, hands-on lab and classroom offering access to financial data, leading analytic software and professional research tools.

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About the Department of Finance

The Department of Finance offers high-quality curricula to undergraduate and graduate students interested in corporate finance, asset management, real estate, insurance, banking, financial planning and business law. The department boasts internationally renowned research faculty in several areas, including derivatives, asset management, banking and spatial econometrics. The department's Securities Markets Analysis, Research, & Trading Lab utilizes the Bloomberg Professional service, the platform used by more than 300,000 leading business and financial professionals worldwide to make informed business decisions and a library of financial databases. Additionally, the department encourages, supports and conducts research in real estate by housing the nationally renowned Real Estate Research Institute. For more information, visit lsu.edu/business/finance or call 225-578-6291.