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An Investment Odyssey: The Gains of Avant-garde Traders at HKU

An Investment Odyssey: The Gains of Avant-garde Traders at HKU

Muhammad Hussain, Shah Jahan Ishaq, and Hassan Ali Naeem’s story
Faculty of Science, Faculty of Engineering
BSc(ActuarSc), BEng(CompSc), BSc(ActuarSc)

Can undergraduate students rival postgraduate students? You may think the latter with greater experience will compete much more effectively. However, the following story may redefine your answer to this question. An ambitious group of science and engineering HKU students, still in their freshmen year last year, joined the CASH Algo Trading Challenge 2023, in which their strong dedication and innovation of fresh perspectives brought them the Overall Champion award as well as two silver awards, namely Best Return and Best Sharpe.


The team attended the CASH Algo Trading Challenge 2023 award ceremony. (From left to right: Shah Jahan Ishaq, Muhammad Hussain and Hassan Ali Naeem)

It all started with the team’s initiative in experimentation. While all three of the group were committed to a full-time summer internship back then, they still managed to join this international algorithmic trading competition, venturing all the way in rounds of ideation, testing, and competing steps. The valuable takeaway was the practicality of doing heavy-lifting parts of monitoring the market, analyzing the mathematical indexes, and applying risk management knowledge. More rewardingly, the process was much accelerated and strengthened in contesting with the pool of more than 500 participants originating from over 15 countries, while some even possess years of working experience.


A high-spirited team photo celebrating the hard-earned victory together with the trophies. (From left to right: Hassan Ali Naeem, Muhammad Hussain, and Shah Jahan Ishaq)

Their magnificent and glorious results were unexpected by them. One of the team members, Muhammad, recalled, “Some audience talked to us and asked whether we were PhD students already without knowing we were still freshmen. We could hardly imagine that we did make this impression.” This comment is living proof of how competent our students are.

While they are very successful in formulating investment strategies, they are savvy at investing in themselves as well, true investors somewhat larger than life. Never underestimate yourself - their success story has proved to us your beginning and experience per se do not matter, but a mature growth mindset helps reap a mature investment.


Written by:
Jonathan Ngai
Year 4, Faculty of Social Sciences
September 2023

An Investment Odyssey: The Gains of Avant-garde Traders at HKU