Five American University of Sharjah (AUS) students were among the winners at the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) & Nasdaq Dubai Trading Game for students, run between April 26 and May 10, 2016. The aim of the game was to educate and train investors on how to trade equities and derivatives in real life, and to have the highest total profit.

The five students from the AUS School of Business Administration (SBA) ranked in the top 13 of the competition, which promotes financial knowledge and sharpens student skills, helping them to link their academic knowledge with the practical side of the capital markets. The winning AUS students were Sarmad Abdulhussein, who placed third and won AED 5,000; and Nacer Bennani, Rishabh Bafna, Yassin Abdul-Hadi and Slim Lahouel who placed sixth, seventh, eighth and thirteenth, respectively, and won AED 1,000 each. AUS also won the Distinction Award for the best Educational Institution in the competition.

"I think that this is a great achievement, especially since this is our first time to participate in that competition," said Dr. Anis Samet, Associate Professor of Finance, who coached the students. "This achievement is a testament to the quality of our students and faculty."

Prior to the competition, DFM and Nasdaq Dubai collaborated with educational institutions through a series of workshops to explain how the competition worked. Over the 10 days of the game 2,362 students from 26 schools and universities executed 16,802 trades valued at AED 5,419,508,005.