Policies

Grading

Grades will be based on completing the assigned homework, the quality and completeness of the course project, project presentation, and participation in the class trading competition.

30% homeworks, 20% participation in the trading competition, and 50% final project.

Teamwork

All projects are expected to be completed by the team as a whole. Students will form teams by the end of the first week of class. Each team should choose a "team representative" to be responsible for submitting project updates and ultimately the final project. Part of your grade on the final project will be based on private peer reviews.

Trading Competition

Near the end of the course we will have a simulated market environment and each team will deploy a trading system of their own design to participate in this market. They will then compete against each other and simulated market participants to earn the most trading profits.

Course Project

Your primary responsibility for this course is the course project. The project is intended to help you get a job in the high-frequency trading industry so try to find an idea that will be both impressive and challenging. However, the most important thing is that you complete it. Therefore, each team should try to choose something that will stretch but not break their capabilities. Each team member should make a significant contribution to the project and be able to explain their contribution in detail. Students should expect to spend a significant amount of time outside of class working on this project. You are free to use whatever resources (e.g. open source projects, AI assistance, external help, etc) however you need to document which are your original contributions.

Lectures

Students should attend all classes. Effective class meetings rely on students’ participation to raise questions and contribute to discussions. We will strive to maintain interactive class discussions if possible. There is no textbook for this course so the only way you will learn is through attending class and working on the projects. Lecture capture and Zoom will not be provided.

Regrading

All requests to change grading of any course work must be submitted to the instructor in writing within one week of when the grades are made available. Requests must be specific and explain why you feel your work deserves additional credit.

Late Work

All scheduled due dates/times are US Eastern Time. The purpose of the homework due dates is 1) to make sure you are making progress towards building your trading system and 2) to make it easier for me to post grades. Each homework assignment builds on the previous ones so you do not want to fall behind. Reasonable extensions will be granted.

Academic Integrity

Notre Dame Students are expected to abide by Academic Code of Honor Pledge:

As a member of the Notre Dame community, I acknowledge that it is my responsibility to learn and abide by principles of intellectual honesty and academic integrity, and therefore I will not participate in or tolerate academic dishonesty.

Authorship effort on any submitted work must be accurately documented and properly cited. Artificial Intelligence tools like ChatGPT represents a new paradigm in academic and scholarly writing. Use of such tools on submitted work must be documented.