Traders at Michigan was founded by Arjun Rastogi in the fall of 2023, during the first semester of his sophomore year. What began as an extremely grassroots effort—with no notoriety or presence on campus—quickly evolved into something much greater than anyone anticipated.

The original cohort started meeting in the East Quad basement, and those early sessions strengthened everyone's dedication and commitment to the club in ways we never expected. We were lucky to find other people as intellectually curious as us, and we all wanted to contribute to each other's professional development and college experiences as a whole. That shared passion became the foundation of everything TAM stands for today.

By our second semester, the efforts of our dedicated cohort paid off—we secured our first corporate sponsors. This milestone allowed us to host our first-ever nationwide event: the Quant Convention (now known as our Annual UMich Trading Competition). The event featured two homemade games that our members built from scratch: Zingers, an online trading game, and Wager Wars, an Excel-based team competition.

Today, TAM hosts two flagship nationwide events each year: our Annual Trading Competition in the spring and our Poker Tournament in the fall. What started in a basement with a handful of curious students has grown into a thriving community dedicated to demystifying quantitative finance for the next generation.