01
Opening problem set
Teams start the day with a timed set on probability, expected value, and market intuition, written under exam conditions in the competition room. Scores seed the trading rounds.
Competitions
We host the competitions we wish existed.
Trading competitions are the closest thing to a live desk a student can get access to. There are only a handful each year, so we are building one of our own.
Inaugural year
Buckeye Trading Competition
Release date TBD
A one-day, in-person student trading competition designed and run by BQS on the Ohio State campus. Open to undergraduates from any school and any major.
We got tired of waiting for the handful of firm-run competitions each year, so we are building our own. The Buckeye Trading Competition runs entirely in person on the Columbus campus: one room, one day, every team on the clock at the same time. It asks the question a trading desk asks every morning. What is this worth, and how sure are you?
Running it live is the whole point. You hear the room react, you watch the tape move against you, and you have to hold a position in front of people. No finance background is assumed: every round ships with starter code and documentation, and a first-year can walk in and be competitive.
- Format
- In person, single day, on campus
- Venue
- [TBD], Columbus campus
- Eligibility
- Undergraduates, any school, any major
- Team size
- 1–4 students
- Entry fee
- Free
- Prize pool
- [TBD]
- Dates
- To be announced
Registration is not open yet. Fill out the interest form to hear first when the date and venue are announced.
Get notifiedThe format
Four rounds, one room, one day.
Still a working draft — the officer team is iterating on the structure ahead of the first announcement.
02
Manual trading
Open-outcry pricing and bidding against the other teams in the room, with hidden distributions. Points come from modelling the counterparty across the table, not from guessing the number.
03
Algorithmic round
Teams get a fixed window at the venue to write and tune a Python bot that quotes into our matching engine. Scored on realized P&L net of transaction costs, with position limits enforced live.
04
Live finals
The top teams trade a final session on the main floor, then defend their strategy in front of judges from the club and industry. Standings are settled before anyone leaves.
Year-round
Smaller events we run for members.
These are the proving ground. Mechanics that work here are the ones that end up in the Buckeye Trading Competition.
01
Monthly market-making game
A twenty-minute round where someone makes a market on a fact nobody knows and everyone else hits or lifts. Cheap, fast reps at pricing under uncertainty.
02
Mock interview gauntlet
A bracket-style run of brainteasers, mental math, and market-making mocks in the weeks before recruiting season opens.
03
Backtest bake-off
Teams get the same dataset and one week. Strategies are scored out-of-sample, with honest transaction costs, and defended to the room.
We also compete
Members compete outside the club, too.
Teams form weeks ahead of each opening round and split into signal research, execution, and risk, with a full dry-run against the previous year’s problems before anything goes live. Members also compete in algorithmic contests outside finance entirely.
IMC Prosperity
2025
#1 manual trading (Round 1) · Top 1% overall
A fifteen-day, five-round algorithmic trading competition run by IMC against thousands of teams worldwide.
Akuna Capital Virtual Trading Competition
2025
Finalists
Akuna’s options-focused competition, centered on market making and volatility trading under live simulated conditions.
ICPC Asia Pacific Championship Mirror
2025
Top 50
The mirror round of the Asia Pacific championship. Five hours, one machine per team, and a problem set that rewards the same algorithmic fluency a research desk asks for.