CME Group Announces Winners of the 22nd Annual University Trading Challenge

• Universidad de Monterrey won first place, with two others from outside the U.S. in the top five
• Record participation from over 615 teams across 25 countries 

CHICAGO, Dec. 11, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — CME Group, the world’s leading derivatives marketplace, today announced the winners of its 22^nd annual University Trading Challenge, led by Universidad de Monterrey in Mexico.

This year’s four-week competition reached a new participation record, with more than 615 teams of 1,800 students from 25 countries. Teams represented 174 universities around the world.

Students learned hands-on techniques for trading agriculture, energy, metals, equity indices, interest rates and foreign exchange futures contracts using CQG‘s real-time simulated electronic trading platform. Throughout the challenge, students also received live market updates through Dow Jones newsfeeds and The Hightower Report.

 “The University Trading Challenge offers a truly unique educational opportunity, giving the next generation of potential trading professionals the hands-on experience and skills needed for navigating futures markets in a fun, interactive and competitive environment,” said Anita Liskey, CME Group Senior Managing Director of Global Brand Marketing and Communications. “We were so pleased to have record-breaking participation in this year’s competition and congratulate the winning teams for their impressive achievements.”

“Congratulations to all of the winners and participants in this year’s University Trading Challenge,” said Pat Kenny, SVP of Client Relations at CQG. “CQG remains committed to educating the next generation of derivatives traders. The competition offers students the unique opportunity to make trading decisions based on real-time CME Group data, CQG’s analytics, commentary and real-time news feeds from Dow Jones, and executed with CQG’s premier trade routing technology.”

Students on the top five winning teams receive cash prizes, if eligible, and all participants from this year’s trading challenge were invited to attend an exclusive one-day, in-person market education event on December 8.

CME Group provides a wide range of risk management education, including its CME Institute education hub, which offers detailed courses, webinars and videos on trading futures on options markets, as well as a trading simulator.

CME Group also partners with other industry organizations to offer educational tools, such as Futures Fundamentals, a one-stop educational resource to help learners of all levels understand futures markets and the role they play in everyday life.

As the world’s leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, cryptocurrencies, energy, agricultural products and metals. The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform. In addition, it operates one of the world’s leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing. 

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc. NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec is a trademark of BrokerTec Americas LLC and EBS is a trademark of EBS Group LTD. The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC (“S&P DJI”). “S&P®”, “S&P 500®”, “SPY®”, “SPX®”, US 500 and The 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC; Dow Jones®, DJIA® and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored, endorsed, marketed, or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 

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SOURCE CME Group