Montana local and MSU freshman set to compete in national trading competition

Algorithms, algebra and programming in a simulated stock market might sound intimidating to lots of people, but not MSU freshman Zane Nordwick. He’s headed to compete in a national competition at the University of Chicago in a few days, where he will fight to take home $15,000 and national recognition.

This year, the 11th annual UChicago Trading Competition is happening on April 14 and 15. The contest asks participants to develop algorithms to make trading decisions in the faux stock market, have their technical programming skills sharp and financial know-how tested, according to the competition’s website.

The competition is the nation’s premier algorithmic trading competition, according to the UChicago website.

Nordwick is currently studying mathematics and said he will hone his “statistical and linear algebra” skills and some self-taught programming skills at the upcoming competition.

Although he started his mathematical journey with his mom at a very young age, he said that his love for the subject didn’t develop until he was much older. “I remember my mom teaching me math at the table by moving fruit around, but I don’t think it was until middle school when I really noticed my passion for math start,” Nordwick said.

The Montana native was born in Polson but moved to Libby when he was two, where he came up through the public school system. Unfortunately for Nordwick, Libby High School had no Advanced Placement (AP) STEM classes available, so he was forced to find alternative routes to excel at math.

“Luckily, I had a great math teacher who helped me develop my math skills until my senior year,” he explained. During his senior year, his friend's parents, both math professors from Kentucky, helped Zane and his friend prepare to take the AP Calculus test in Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho — the location of the closest school that offered the exam.

This tutoring from his friends' parents was highly beneficial. Because he could take and pass the AP Calculus test, Nordwick was able to skip some freshman-level math courses. “This experience really helped me jumpstart my college-level math career by putting me a semester ahead in my math courses,” he said.

Now, these advanced math skills will be helpful this spring when he competes in the UChicago trading competition. Nordwick and his team could win some serious dough — last year, the winner was awarded over $15,000 in prize money, and a similar amount is anticipated this year.

“The competition has three cases: portfolio management, futures, and options,” Nordwick said. “For each case, teams of competitors write Python code to execute trades in each case to see who can make the most money. It involves a lot of basic statistics and linear algebra as well as coding skills.”

When asked if he was taking classes at MSU to help him learn these programming skills, he explained that he is taking a coding class now, but he taught himself how to program in middle school, where his grandfather taught a computer class and inspired him to learn how to program, he said. Now, he will be able to pair his coding knowledge with his mathematical skills in the competition next week.

However, because this trading competition is at such a high level, not everyone can register to compete. Nordwick secured a spot in the competition because of a five-week-long scholarship program he attended last summer at New York State University called the Academy of Math and Programming. After watching an ad on Youtube, he applied for the program and was awarded one of the few spots in the academy.

It was at this program that he made three friends who would go on to become his future teammates in the upcoming UChicago competition.

Since the program, they have been preparing for the competition by covering a lot of basic statistics and linear algebra and talking about their overall strategy for the different cases. This training involves Nordwick and his friends engaged in weekly Zoom meetings to discuss their game plan and practice.

Nordwick says that he enjoys the challenge of the trading competition, but doesn’t plan to pursue something like this career-wise.

He said that because the friends that he is competing with are from the east coast, he doesn’t see them often. For that reason, Nordwick says that he would jump at the chance to compete alongside them again. “If they ever text me and ask if I would want to do something like this again, I would definitely say yes!”

Nordwick and his friends will meet next week in Chicago to compete, so if you see him around campus, be sure to wish him luck!