Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Westminster International University in Tashkent (WIUT) is delighted to announce that its team, consisting of five Finance Level 6 students, competed against 495 university teams from around the world in the Bloomberg Global Trading Challenge 2021 and ranked 14th globally and 4th overall across  Asia. This was the first global finance (online) competition that WIUT students and faculty ever participated in. 

Ranking by country, Uzbekistan, which was represented only by WIUT, placed 5th among all the countries whose universities competed in the challenge, just behind the USA, India, China, and Saudi Arabia. Uzbekistan was, also, the only country amongst the CIS countries that reached the top 100 positions in the competition. 

With virtual US$1 million to invest, the WIUT team generated a profit of US$213,000; when benchmarked against the WLS index (a global stock index), the team outperformed by US$177,000. These are results that would impress even the most experienced fund managers.

On behalf of all the faculty and its 5,000 students, Bakhrom Mirkasimov, Rector, warm-heartedly congratulated the Team Captain Javokhir Orzukulov as well as the team members Ibrokhim Aliev, Kamilla Mirodilova, Ismoil Khojiev, and Shakhzod Tulkinov for their success and achievement. He also expressed his gratitude to the academic faculty members who recruited and coached the team; Qobiljon Yunusov, Marco Bonelli, Ram Sen, Temur Makhkamov and Sherzod Safarov are acknowledged together with the key contribution of faculty member Kamolakhon Alikulova for her support to this initiative.  

The Bloomberg Global Trading Challenge is the only university trading competition to take place entirely within the Bloomberg Terminal platform. University teams, across the world and consisting of 3-5 students led by a faculty advisor, use the Terminal to define market assumptions, develop a return-generating strategy, and execute trades over a closed network. 

WIUT team’s impressive finish in the Bloomberg Global Trading Challenge was an outstanding achievement in the second year of the launch of the BSc Finance degree course. The BSc Finance course is the first and only Finance degree course in Uzbekistan that is integrated with the Bloomberg financial markets suite and validated by the University of Westminster (UK). 

WIUT students also won another internationally acclaimed finance competition titled, the “CFA Investment Challenge in Central Asia” two years in a row, in both 2019 and 2020, respectively.