BLOOMINGTON, Ill. - Illinois Wesleyan University’s School of Business and Economics (SoBE) recently marked a major milestone in its finance program, competing for the first time in the Global Trading Challenge hosted by Bloomberg for Education.
The annual competition is an opportunity typically reserved for large state institutions and elite universities equipped with Bloomberg Terminals. Many of the participating schools are based in China and Hong Kong, which typically provide the top-performing teams.
IWU is one of the few small liberal arts universities in the nation to house Bloomberg Terminals, the industry-leading systems used by finance professionals to access and analyze data. Bryan McCannon ’98, the Robert S. Eckley endowed professor of economics and dean of SoBE, recruited three finance students to form the university’s inaugural team.
Competing as the “Titans,” team members Andrew Ortega ‘26, Andres Morales-Gomez ‘26 and Sean Hollendoner ‘27 spent one month investing a virtual fund in global markets. The challenge began October 13 and concluded November 14, giving each team $100,000 of virtual money to invest with a simple goal to grow the fund as much as possible. Whoever made the most at the end of the timeline won.
The Titans were one of 2,732 teams worldwide, each with three to five students and a faculty advisor. They finished within the top 40 percent of competitors entirely thanks to their own knowledge and efforts, according to McCannon.
Aside from recruiting the team, “I did nothing,” McCannon said. “And you can quote me on that.”
For the students, the competition offered both hands-on experience and a crash course in following global market shifts.
“It’s a good experience for the students,” McCannon said. “They’re spending time outside of class doing market research, using the skills they learn in their portfolio management class.”
“It was a lot of fun keeping up with the market,” said Morales-Gomez. “Because of the short timeline, we got really caught up in the news, and we’ve kept that habit.”
Morales-Gomez said the team closely followed developments in “hyperscalers”—the large artificial intelligence companies driving rapid changes in tech and investment trends.
While the contest involves virtual investments, IWU students also use the Bloomberg Finance Lab in the portfolio management class, where they manage millions of dollars of real money in the University's endowment. SoBE plans to compete again next year and build on their strong debut in the university’s first appearance in the challenge.