2019 – 2020 Competition Rules & Logistics
Teams Composition
Only students from Global Network member schools are eligible for the competition. Each school team needs to have a minimum of 2 students and a faculty advisor. Teams may have up to 6 students. Each school can have up to two teams. Two teams from the same school may share a faculty advisor.
Portfolios
Each team will create a portfolio of five stocks, publicly traded on a market in the country in which their school is based. All 5 stocks must represent publicly traded companies headquartered, incorporated and traded in the country in which the participating network school is located. Each stock must be priced in the top 75% of all stocks traded in the respective country’s markets and must have average daily trading values for the last 20 days in the top 75% of companies traded on the local market exchanges. All stocks in the portfolio have to have been traded for at least one year by the start of the competition. The list of stocks in a team’s portfolio must be submitted along with investment summaries of no more than 250 words for 4 of the stocks and a detailed research report of up to 15 pages for the team’s favorite stock.
Prizes
The International Center for Finance at the Yale School of Management is offering prizes for both the quality of the security analysis as well as the actual performance of the stocks. The winning teams for both the security and the performance prizes will be awarded $3,500, and the runners up will be awarded $1,500.
Performance Prizes
In this competition performance will be defined in terms of gross return of the portfolio less the performance of the applicable country’s capital-weighted stock market index. Net portfolio return is defined as the [return of the portfolio] – [return of the applicable country index].
The portfolio indices for all the participating teams will be updated daily with a maximum of 24 hours delay. A restricted access to the raw data fields (stock-level adjusted price and daily return) will be provided for the faculty advisors and those data fields will be the only source of data which will be considered for the performance calculation. The adjustment of historical prices for corporate actions is limited to the scope of the data. Any issues with the return calculations should be reported within 3 business days after the end of investment period, and the report should refer only to the raw data and include the description of the problem in the scope of the data.
The five stock selections will be equally weighted at the start of the competition, but after that the portfolio will be treated as a buy and hold portfolio with no trading during the competition. If a stock is delisted during the competition, any cash earned cannot be reinvested, nor can it earn interest. Teams are responsible for notifying competition organizers of changes in the stock symbol or delisting of a stock in their portfolio within 10 days of the change.
The investment period for the purposes of the performance prize runs for the 6 months between Thursday, October 31, 2019 and Thursday, April 30th, 2020.
Security Analysis Prize
The winners of the Security Analysis Prize will be chosen based on the strength of their detailed report and a virtual pitch, for the finalists only, before a panel of judges. The detailed report of your team’s favorite stock should include a spreadsheet detailing forecasts with text explaining where the numbers for the forecast came from. For good examples of detailed research reports, please refer to the website of the Yale SOM Security Analysis course here - http://analystreports.som.yale.edu.
The four teams with the best detailed reports will be selected as finalists for the Security Analysis Prize, and will be asked to prepare a PowerPoint presentation of no more than 10 pages including figures, charts and appendices. The finalist teams will present virtually to a panel of distinguished judges for the Security Analysis prize. Being chosen as a finalist not only makes your team eligible for a cash prize, but also gives you exposure to expert investors.
The four finalist teams will have 10 minutes to present their stock before the judges, followed by an additional 15 minutes of Q & A with the judges. Winners will be chosen based on the quality of the investment thesis, research, question and answer, as well as presentation skills.
The Security Analysis competition will take place in the morning (New Haven time) of February 7, 2020.
All the submissions, including write-ups, PowerPoint presentations, and video recordings of stock pitches will be posted on the Global Network Investment Competition website.
* Any exceptions to the above rules must be approved by the International Center for Finance (ICF) at the Yale School of Management. The organizers of the competition may at their discretion amend the rules at any point to ensure integrity of the competition.
Deadlines and logistics
The deadline to register a team is Wednesday, October 23, 2019, 11:59 PM EST. Please talk to the MBA Director at your school to get the registration link for this year’s competition.
The deadline to submit your portfolio of five stocks is Tuesday, October 29, 2019, 11:59 PM EST and the deadline to submit your research reports is Tuesday, November 5, 2019, 11:59 PM EST. Only complete and on time submissions will be accepted.
Teams with the best research reports will advance to the final round of the Security Analysis Prize Contest. The leaders of these teams will be notified by e-mail. The timing of the Security Analysis Prize Contest will depend on the number of teams that enter the competition and the judges’ schedules. Teams that are not selected for the Security Analysis Prize Contest will still be eligible for Performance Prizes.
Finalist teams in the Security Analysis Prize Competition will pitch their top idea via videoconference to the panel of judges. No travel is required. The winners of the contest will be announced on the same day.
The Performance Prizes will be announced in May 2020. Participants will be able to track the performance of their investment portfolios on the competition website.