A team of Western Illinois University School of Agriculture students recently competed in the four-week international electronic trading competition, the CME Group Trading Challenge.

The three-member team finished 356th out of 500 teams in the highly competitive event. This year’s team members were agriculture business majors Kelsie Cawthon, a senior, of Macomb; Isabella Gray, a senior, of Blandinsville, IL; and Jaclyn Janssen, a senior, of Avon, IL.

The WIU team is advised by Agriculture Professor Jason Franken.

“I think it was a good learning experience for the students,” said Franken. “I’m grateful to have students that are willing to go above and beyond course requirements by participating in such a competition and happy to serve as their advisor.”

The competition is a simulated event that allows students from around the world to experience trading real-time futures using the CQG electronic trading platform. Team are made up of three-to-five students from each university.

Students start with $500,000 in simulated cash to trade with and this year’s WIU team finished the competition with $455,224.

For more information about WIU’s School of Agriculture programming, visit wiu.edu/ag.

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Sean Leary Director of Digital Media

Sean Leary is an author, director, artist, musician, producer and entrepreneur who has been writing professionally since debuting at age 11 in the pages of the Comics Buyers Guide. An honors graduate of the University of Southern California masters program, he has written over 50 books including the best-sellers The Arimathean, Every Number is Lucky to Someone and We Are All Characters.