Trading floor gives students an edge

he Subotnick Financial Services Center (SFSC), the only business school resource of its kind in New York, according to its website, is a unique and useful tool offered to Baruch College students where they can explore aspects of the business world in a way not available to many students in other schools.

"The SFSC opened in Spring of 2000 and consists of four main areas," said Professor Richard Holowczak, Director of the SFSC.

The Sidney I. Lirtzman Financial Seminar Hall, "which was dedicated in 2005 to our former Dean Sidney Litzman who spearheaded the effort to create the center," said Holowczak; The Bert W. and Sandra Wasserman Trading Floor; The software Development Lab, which has 25 work stations and is located in the back of the Trading Floor; and the Research Room are all located on the first floor of the Newman Library.

According to Holowczak, the primary sources of funding are Stuart Subotnick and Bert and Sandra Wasserman.

The Wasserman Trading Floor, the largest part of the SFSC, is a simulated trading environment. There are three things that make our trading floor unique, said Holowczak in an e-mail interview.

First, the trading floor is available to all students, regardless of their major. Second, the center boasts innovative resources.

"Our information technology systems are state of the art and include the latest in workstation, server and networking systems," said Holowczak.

Finally, Holowczack "Our staff have deep experience in a wide range of finance and IT and we regularly share this with our students."

"The trading floor has 50 workstations. Of the 50 main workstations, 40 have Reuters 3000XTra and 10 have the Bloomberg Professional software installed," said Holowczak.

The SFSC is made available for student use in more than one way. Students are welcome to come on their own for personal use, with or for a class, or to benefit from one of the 30-40 free workshops taught each semester.

The SFSC offers free workshops such as the introduction to Bloomberg I and II, introduction to Reuters I and II, Reuters Futures, Reuters Options, and Reuters Fixed Income. Students can register for these workshops on the SFSC websites.

"Any student with a valid Baruch ID card can use the Center when it is not in use by a class or other event," said Holowczak. However, restrictions are put in place. "The rules can be summed up as follows: The trading floor is for academic uses only. We do not support actual trading."

While the trading floor was built and is currently only intended for student use, it has been put to use by professional traders with only the addition of 25 more phone lines.

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, "several friends of the College" could not get to their offices in lower Manhattan, said Holowczak. Upon their request, Baruch allowed them the use of the trading floor, which stands as a testament to its potential and the type of resource students have at their hands.

The center recently underwent improvements in August, when an upgrade of all the workstations on the trading floor were completed. According to Holowczak, "We are currently upgrading the data storage infrastructure to warehouse even more financial data. This is primarily for research purposes but students will have access to this data as well."

"Our doors are open to any Baruch student who wants to learn more about financial markets," said Halowczak.