Zicklin Student Traders Finish in Top 100 in Bloomberg Global Trading Challenge

The results are in: After five weeks competing against some 10,000 students around the world, a team of Zicklin School undergraduates has placed in the top 3 percent in the 2025 Bloomberg Global Trading Challenge.  

Jonathan, Bryan, Anastasiia, and Alexandru (left to right)

Out of nine Baruch teams that competed, Team BAJA Bearcats—Jonathan Flores (BBA, ’27), Bryan Hidalgo (BBA, ’26), Anastasiia Klimova (BBA, ’26), and Alexandru Medina (BBA, ’25)—finished with trading profits of over $40,000. BAJA Bearcats also placed second among all participating CUNY teams, finishing 31st in North America and in the top 100 worldwide. 

Team captain Alexandru Medina said that he expected BAJA Bearcats (whose name is an acronym of the first letters of its members’ first names) to have difficulty at first because of the “learning curve” to trading. But once they studied how market trends influence specific equities, learned to trade “based on research instead of emotion,” and brainstormed together “to identify the next big opportunity,” he added, “I knew instantly that our team was going to blow it out of the water.” 

“Investing is hard, particularly over a short horizon and in periods of economic and political uncertainty,” observed Lecturer Gideon Pell, the interim director of the Subotnick Financial Services Center, which is home to the Bloomberg terminals that students used throughout the competition to conduct research and execute trades. “A lot of market analysts try to predict the market, but no one has a crystal ball.” What matters most in the end, he concluded, was that students learned valuable skills from the trading experience. “Congratulations to all our students who participated,” he added.  

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