Rules

HOWARD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS BNP PARIBAS TRADING CHALLENGE

SPRING 2025 RULES

Eligibility: Open to Howard University School of Business students (majoring in the School of Business) who are enrolled for courses during the semester.

Registration: Free at https://www.stocktrak.com:443/members/register?sessionid=326373 , from January 13 through April 04, 2025.  

Duration: February 3 through April 11, 2025 (10 weeks).

Accounts: Only one competition account per student (based on student ID and e-mail address). Students must set up accounts in their own names (no pseudonyms). Any student who trades more than one account during the Challenge will not be eligible for an award.

Eligible Investments: Bonds, Mutual Funds, Stocks with minimum prices of $5 traded on U.S. Exchanges, Stock Options, Foreign Currencies, and Spot Commodities.

Initial Amount available for Trading: $500,000.

Margin: 50% (For example, students can invest up to $1,000,000 with equity of $500,000).

Short Sales: Yes.

Day Trading: Yes. (Can buy and sell the same security on the same day.)

Maximum Position Limit for each Security: 25% ($125,000).

Number of Trades during Competition: Minimum 5, Maximum 200.

Trading Commission: $10 per trade.

Volume Restriction: A trade will be executed only if the actual trading volume during the day is at least twice the volume to be traded. (Orders will not be filled partially.)

Awards: Only Howard University students who are majoring in the School of Business and follow all the rules, including trading only one account and completing at least 5 trades, will be eligible for awards. Eligible students with the top five portfolio values at market close on April 11, 2025, will win scholarship awards of $600, $550, $500, $450, and $400 for their Sharpe ratios ranked 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively. The top five award winners will be determined by their portfolio values, but their award amounts will be based on their Sharpe ratio ranks. If any award winners have negative Sharpe ratios, the award amounts among these students will be determined by their Alpha rankings. If more than one graduate student finishes among the top five eligible students, only the top graduate student will be eligible for an award. EMBA students are not eligible for awards. The School of Business Dean’s decisions regarding the awards will be final. The awards will be credited to the student accounts of the winners. We may not be able to provide awards to students who are graduating this semester or those whose student accounts cannot be credited for any reason.

In addition, we are happy to announce that eligible sophomores who perform well in the Challenge will be offered an opportunity to interview for summer internships for 2025 at the BNP Paribas New York office.

Requirement: Award winners should submit an attachment of their Account Balances (in My Portfolio tab), along with their student ID no., major, year, phone number, and e-mail address, to Professor Sandip Mukherji (e-mail address: smukherji@howard.edu), by April 14, 2025.

Registration

1. You must create a new account for this semester’s Trading Challenge. An account created in a past

    semester should not be used for trading this semester.

2. Go to the website: edu.stocktrak.com/howard (Note. The address doesn’t begin with www.)

3. Click on the Register to Play link on the right.

4. Enter your Login and Registration information (use your actual full name and Student ID; do not use any pseudonym or alias).

5. Click Register.

6. Note down your User Name and Password in a safe place where you can access it throughout the

    semester. Also save the confirmation e-mail containing these details. (You will not be able to trade if you do not have your User Name and Password.)   

Dashboard

Click the links you want to access on the left, for example: FAQ, Trading Rules, What Can I Win, Investment Research, and links under Equity Research and Market Research. You can also change your password by clicking the link under the Dashboard tab on top left.

 

Trading

1. Click on the Make a Trade tab on top.

2. Click on Trade Stocks/ETFs, Trade Options, Trade Mutual Funds, Trade Bonds, Trade Spots, Symbol

    Lookup, or My Order History.

3. Fill in the particulars for the security you want to trade.

For stocks/Exchange Traded Funds and options, you can choose from three different types of orders, which are briefly explained below:

Market Order: Buy orders are executed at the current ask (higher) price and sell orders are executed at the current bid (lower) price at the time when the order is received.

Limit Order: Buy orders are executed only if the stock price reaches a level that is equal to, or lower than, the specified limit price. Sell orders are executed only if the stock price reaches a level that is equal to, or higher than, the specified limit price. Limit buy/sell orders are placed below/above the current market price.

Stop Order: Buy/sell ordersare automatically executed if the stock price reaches the specified level. Stop buy/sell orders are placed above/below the current market price.

Other Features

1. Click the links under the Portfolio Simulation for Portfolio Summary, Open Positions, Closed Positions, Transaction History, Order History, and Portfolio Rankings.

2. Click the links under Investing Research, Markets, for Market Summary, Market Movers, Top     Performing ETFs, Economic Rates, and Currencies.

3. Click the links under Investing Research, Stock Research, for Stock/Fund Quotes, Symbol Lookup,

    Stock Screener, Interactive Charts, Company News, Option Chain, Key Ratios, Share Performance,

    Earnings, Corporate Actions, Recent Trades, Historical Prices, Financial Statements, SEC Filings, and

   Analyst Ratings.

4. Click the links under Investing Research, Mutual Fund/ETF Research, for Fund Quotes, Fund Overview,

Fund Performance, and Fund Holdings.

5. Click the links under the Videos tab on top for Navigating Videos and Trading Videos.

6. Click the links under the Career Center for Jobs & Internships, Certifications, and Job Search Tips.