Form your team
Register your team and nominate one team member as the form submitter who will own your allocation decisions for the season.
Spring 2026 - Registration now open
Build a global portfolio.
Compete with the world.
The QGF Global Portfolio Challenge is a worldwide, simulated investment competition that teaches students how to construct, manage and defend a diversified portfolio using international investment funds. One semester. One hundred thousand virtual dollars. One global leaderboard.
About the Challenge
A serious classroom for global portfolio thinking.
The QGF Global Portfolio Challenge is a team-based, simulated investment competition designed as a hands-on educational tool. Each team is given a virtual fund of US$100,000 and competes across six months of monthly investment rounds, allocating their capital across a basket of international investment funds.
The Challenge is run by QGF Limited and the QGF Global Forum. Top-ranked teams from each edition are recognised on this site and at qgf.org. Since its inception, the programme has drawn thousands of students from six continents and more than one hundred universities.
Five steps
How the Challenge works
From registration to your first leaderboard placement in under an afternoon.
Receive your fund
Every team starts with a virtual US$100,000 investment fund. Every fund's unit price starts at US$1.00 on day one.
Allocate each month
Each month you have ten minutes to discuss and submit your fund allocation form. Allocate between 10% and 50% to each fund as integer percentages.
Watch the market move
Each month fund prices respond to ten investment-influencing factors and broader market conditions. Mentors help you read them - but the call is yours.
Settle on month six
Account balances are published each month. After six monthly rounds, the team with the highest account balance on settlement day takes the Cup.
Want the full rulebook?
The complete fifteen-rule rulebook, broken out by section and explained in plain English, is published online.
Rules of the Challenge
Simple rules. Serious markets.
The full fifteen-rule rulebook is published online. Here is a summary of what every team should know before the first monthly round.
Starting setup
- Every team receives a starting fund of US$100,000.
- The unit price of every fund begins at US$1.00.
- The competition runs across six monthly investment rounds.
Teams & mentors
- Each team nominates one member to collect inputs and submit the form.
- Each team has ten minutes per round to discuss and submit.
- Mentors help interpret the market - they do not make investment decisions.
Monthly submissions
- Submit one fund-change form per month, on time, every month.
- Late or invalid forms inherit the previous month's allocation.
- Once submitted, a form cannot be retrieved or amended.
Allocation limits
- Each fund must receive between 10% and 50% of your account balance.
- Allocations must be integer percentages.
- Winner: highest account balance on the day of settlement.
100+
Universities represented
7,500+
Student participants
6
Continents reached
21
Editions completed
Recognition
Why compete?
Beyond sharpening your investment thesis and your fund-selection skills, the Challenge recognises top performers in ways that look just as good on a CV as they do on a leaderboard.
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Top-5 features
The semester's top five portfolios are featured on this site and across QGF Global Perspectives.
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Weekly leaderboards
Weekly and monthly leaders are highlighted on social channels and on the public leaderboard.
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School recognition
Universities with 100+ registered students receive a dedicated cohort ranking and certificate.
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Award ceremony
Semester winners are invited to the QGF Global Portfolio Cup ceremony, hosted at the QGF Global Forum.
Global community
Who is participating?
The Challenge has attracted students from, literally, around the globe. A selection of countries represented in recent editions:
- United States
- Canada
- Mexico
- Brazil
- United Kingdom
- Ireland
- France
- Germany
- Netherlands
- Switzerland
- Italy
- Spain
- Portugal
- Austria
- Sweden
- Poland
- Türkiye
- UAE
- South Africa
- Ghana
- India
- Singapore
- China
- South Korea
- Japan
- Thailand
- Vietnam
- Indonesia
- Australia
- New Zealand
Visual identity
One logo. Three surfaces.
The QGF mark is provided in three palettes so it can sit comfortably on any background — light, neutral or dark — without sacrificing legibility or brand presence.
Primary — Navy on Light
Neutral — Muted Wordmark
Reverse — White on Navy
Spring 2026 season
One semester. Six closed monthly rounds.
Registration is open through 27 February 2026. The performance window runs 1 March to 31 August 2026. There is no entry fee, no required terminal, and no day-trading tape — only a mandate, a fund basket, and a written rationale.
What you are signing up for
A team of three to six eligible university students receives a virtual US$100,000 and allocates it across a published basket of international investment funds. Each fund must receive an integer 10% to 50% of the account. Once a month the form submitter sends a single fund-change form. Late or invalid forms inherit last month’s mix; in month one they go 100% to the USD currency fund.
Prices move with ten investment-influencing factors plus broader market conditions. Mentors may interpret; they may not submit. Generative AI may summarise a source the team has opened; it may not choose the weights. The full operational picture is on How to Play.
Season calendar
| Milestone | Date |
|---|---|
| Registration closes | 27 February 2026 |
| Performance window opens (round 1) | 1 March 2026 |
| Roster freeze after round 3 | May 2026 |
| Final form (round 6) | August 2026 |
| Settlement and certificates | After 31 August 2026 |
Exact submission-window clock times are mailed to form submitters. Convert the stated time zone; do not assume it is 17:00 local.
Scoring pillars
Return, risk and process — read together.
The Cup still goes to the highest account balance on settlement day (Rule 14). Spring 2026 also publishes two companion pillars so a reckless path is visible and a careful process is recognised even when markets do not cooperate.
01
Return
Cumulative change in the virtual account from US$100,000 across six monthly rounds. This is the Cup metric. Ties break on process total, then smaller maximum drawdown, then earlier registration.
02
Risk
A published path score: month-to-month drawdown and whether the team stayed inside the risk note it wrote in month one. Extreme swings are allowed; they are labelled. The 10%–50% band remains a hard constraint, not a suggestion.
03
Process
Completeness of the monthly rationale, real sources, an honest AI-use statement, and a mapping from thesis to weights. Process does not override the Cup. It decides commendations, school certificates and featured write-ups. A worked example lives in the rulebook.
The Field
A landscape of neighbouring contests — not partners.
QGF is a global multi-asset portfolio-construction challenge with a written rationale. It is not a day-trading game, not a single-name equity-research pitch, and not a high-school first contact with shares. Students often compete in more than one classroom in the same academic year; calendars mostly do not collide with our March–August window.
On The Field we map CFA Institute Research Challenge 2026 (8,000+ students, 1,200+ universities, 160 markets; 2026 Global Final in Hong Kong), the CFA Institute Global Investing Game / AmplifyME simulator, the Wharton Global High School Investment Competition, the SIFMA Stock Market Game, the Student Investment Challenge, and Bloomberg Global Trading Challenge 2026. We are not affiliated with any of them. We do not list named student winners.
FAQ
The questions teams ask before round one.
Eligibility, team size, allowed instruments, rebalancing, data sources, the AI research policy, scoring and certificates — answered in plain language, with the numbered rules remaining the legal baseline.
Who can enter, and how big is a team?
Currently enrolled undergraduate and graduate students. Teams of three to six, one form submitter, one scoring seat per student per season. High-school classrooms belong in neighbouring contests mapped on The Field.
May we use Bloomberg — or a chatbot?
Public and university-licensed data, yes. Material non-public information, no. Generative AI may assist research if you disclose it; it may not file the allocation. Details, and fourteen further questions, are on the FAQ.
Contact
Get in touch
For programme enquiries, school partnerships or media requests, the team is happy to hear from you.
Participant support
QGF Challenge Support Centre
Registration, technical and rules questions.
Programme office
QGF Global Portfolio Challenge
School partnerships, ceremonies and media enquiries.