University of Idaho students are trading real stocks with real money.
The Barker Capital Management and Trading Program, implemented by the UI College of Business and Economics, enables students to get hands-on experience developing capital management and strategic skills.
The Barker Program is a student-lead organization with about 30 members. The program allocates $15,000 to students to buy and trade commodities, exchange traded funds and futures contracts.
The commodities students trade include wheat, corn and natural gas. Exchange traded funds (ETF), which hold assets such as commodities, stocks or bonds, can also be traded. Futures contracts are buying contracts for items that have not been produced yet at a set price.
The Barker Program also allows students to practice investing. These students are given the opportunity to make their own trades as well as develop their own policies regarding risk management.
Members of the Barker Program also get access to the Barker Trading Room. Located in the J.A. Albertson Building, the Barker Trading Room houses 22 trading stations available to students, as well as access to different trading software, the Bloomberg Terminal for real time marketing and analysis and an interactive market wall that displays live data.
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Justin Chapman has been a member of the Barker Program for two years and said he thinks it is a great asset to UI and any student interested in business or economics.
“I think it has been helpful in regards to the hands-on part of it. It is really helpful to be able to work on it all in real time and get real experience while still in school,” Chapman said. “The great thing is that it is not just open to business students, we have a lot of ag students as well and it is interesting to see how much the market matters for agriculture too.”
The College of Business and Economics also puts on the Barker Trading Competition, an opportunity for any UI student to get hands on training and instruction on software usage as well as tips on how to analyze and execute trades. After the training period, the students test their strategies for the market in real time. The competition began Monday and will continue until April 13.
During this two-week span, competition participants are required to use the Thinkorswim (TOS) software, which monitors each participant’s activity. Participants are provided with $100,000 of simulated funds that are sent to their TOS accounts at the beginning of the competition.
Each participant is required to exchange at least one traded fund and futures contracts.
There are usually many participants of multiple majors, including business and agricultural business students. Winners are judged based on the highest net liquid worth.
Sophomore John Billington participated in last year’s competition and won fifth place and said the competition is a great opportunity for students to learn how to react to market changes in real time.
“You have to monitor your account and make certain decisions based on how the market is doing on any certain day, which, if that is what you are going to be doing after you get your degree, this experience is not something you’ll be able to do on your own,” Billington said. “I doubt any student has $100,000 of their own money to use to practice in this sort of thing, so it is really helpful to get this experience before having to use your own money or a company’s money.”
The program was named after UI alumnus Rotchford Barker, who graduated in 1961.
Barker served as director and honorary lifelong member of the Chicago Board of Trade, and as president and principle owner of Agra Trading, Inc. until 1970.
Barker was inducted into the UI Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Barker program was created in 2004. The program is funded by an endowment allocated by UI and donations from Barker himself.
Emma Takatori can be reached at [email protected]