Students take part in Amplify Trading Boot Camp 2019

University of Stirling Management School welcomed Amplify, a global financial trading and training company, to campus in February 2019 to deliver a week-long financial trading Boot Camp for undergraduate and postgraduate students on our finance-related courses.

This training is provided free of charge and has been held every year since 2014. During the intensive week, students trade in university computer labs across a variety of futures contracts quoted on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, using virtual money in real-time. These contracts provide exposure to stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities. The experience of trading in response to breaking news enables students to understand how financial markets behave in the real world.

Stirling Management School’s Amplify Trading Boot Camp won the CFA Institute Innovative Delivery of Education Award (IDEA) for innovation in finance teaching and education in 2015. In the same year it was shortlisted in the Wharton-QS Stars Reimagine Education Awards, in the Presence Learning category and was shortlisted as a Finalist in the Herald Higher Education Awards in the Innovation Technology Excellence category.

Dr Kevin Campbell, Director of the MSc Investment Analysis, said: “This is the sixth year that we have run the Boot Camp with Amplify. In addition to real-time trading, students took part in simulations where they competed against each other by acting out roles in hedge funds and investment banks. This experience of both the buy-side and the sell-side of the financial industry will greatly improve their employability.”

In an awards ceremony to mark the end of the Boot Camp, the students who performed best received Top Trader trophies.