Winners Announced in TradeKing Loyola API Challenge

BALTIMORE, MD (05/23/2011)(readMedia)-- Eons past the days of ticker tape, two teams of Loyola University Maryland Sellinger School of Business and Management students recently developed Android and Twitter applications to win the first TradeKing Loyola API Challenge.

Loyola collaborated with TradeKing, an online broker-dealer, on the innovative contest to encourage business and finance students from the Sellinger School to create investment apps, solutions, and mashups using TradeKing's new Application Programming Interface (API). Designed to encourage outside-the-box thinking from students as well as offer TradeKing new ideas on ways to advance its API product, the Challenge brought breakthrough, interactive learning to the classroom and immersed 16 teams in the real-life trading world. Students gained valuable skills in product management, technology/development teamwork, and competitive analysis.

"This was an amazing learning experience for our students," said Paul Tallon, Ph.D., associate professor of information systems at the Sellinger School and executive director of the David D. Lattanze Center for Information Value."TradeKing has rewritten the rule book for how students learn in the classroom."

Tallon says Loyola's Student Experiential Learning Lab (SELL) played an indispensable role in the Challenge's success because it gave students access to the specialized equipment needed to understand how markets operate, including the Thomson Reuters Elkon Platform with a real-time data feed for various investment products. Loyola is one of fewer than 40 schools in the United States with simulated trading technology, and Tallon's class is the first in the country to partner with a firm to create financial apps. Tallon believes the Challenge highlighted how the SELL's interdisciplinary environment helps students develop a unique and applicable skillset.

"This challenge proves that combined skills in IT and finance are valued in the workplace," said Tallon.

The month-long Challenge ended April 30 and TradeKing announced the winners today. Experts from TradeKing and Loyola judged students in four API-related categories:

• Best and most creative use of the TradeKing API functions in a working app;
• Best combined use of the TradeKing API in a working app also utilizing another publicly available API (e.g., Google Finance, Yahoo! Finance, Facebook, Twitter);
• Best technical documentation of a completed and working app;
• Best submission of a Strategic Vision and Execution Plan document advising TradeKing on how to improve and expand upon its API strategy.

The winners, by category, were:

Categories 1 and 3: team of Tony Florida, '12, of Reading, Pa., and Stephen Febish, '11, of River Vale, N.J., computer engineering majors who developed an Android application that clients could use to interact with their TradeKing accounts and perform multiple core brokerage functions.

Categories 2 and 4: team of Paul Donovan, '11, of Westwood, Mass., Paul Kelly, '11, of Westport, Conn., and Michael Radovich, '11, or Seaford, N.Y., who created an application that integrates TradeKing's WatchList functionality with Twitter. Donovan and Radovich are finance majors and Kelly is a marketing major.

"We congratulate the Challenge winners for the extensive time, effort, and creativity they put into their work, and are extremely grateful to Loyola Professor Paul Tallon for his support," said Dan Raju, CIO of TradeKing.

Florida's strong performance landed him a paid internship with TradeKing this summer in the firm's Charlotte, N.C. location.

About TradeKing:

TradeKing (http://www.tradeking.com) is a nationally licensed online stock and options broker offering simple, low cost online trading fees ($4.95 per trade plus $.65 per option contract, $8.95 per trade plus $.15 per options contract for nine or more contracts) with no hidden costs or account minimums.1 A pioneer in integrating new financial social media as part of its innovative online equities, options trading and fixed-income trading platform, TradeKing has received multiple discount broker awards from top industry sources and was rated best in customer service by SmartMoney2 Magazine, ahead of OptionsXpress, Scottrade, Fidelity, and TD Ameritrade. (June 2011 SmartMoney Broker Survey). Options involve risk and are not suitable for all investors. For more information, please review the Characteristics and Risks of Standard Options brochure before you begin trading options. Options investors may lose the entire amount of their investment in a relatively short period of time.