The Field

Where QGF sits

Most student market games ask a team to trade listed stocks inside a simulator and rank by raw return. A second family of contests — equity-research challenges — asks for a written report and a presentation on a single company. QGF is neither a day-trading game nor a single-name research pitch. It is a global multi-asset portfolio-construction challenge with a written rationale: six monthly allocation rounds, a US$100,000 virtual fund, a 10%–50% band per fund, and a settlement based on account balance plus published risk and process pillars.

That design is deliberate. Portfolio construction is what most graduates will actually do first — in a multi-asset desk, a family-office allocation meeting, or a personal SIPP — long before they are asked to publish a twelve-page initiation of coverage. Students who want a trading adrenaline test, a high-school first contact with equities, or a CFA-style research report should use the programmes below. Many students do more than one in the same academic year; the calendars mostly do not collide with QGF’s March–August window.

Figures on this page summarise public coverage of each programme as of the 2025–2026 cycle. Hosts change local rules every year. Always read the organiser’s own site before you register. We do not list named student winners, and we do not claim any of these organisations as partners, sponsors or judges of QGF.

CFA Institute Research Challenge 2026

The CFA Institute Research Challenge is the best-known university equity-research competition in the world. Public materials for the current cycle describe more than 8,000 students, more than 1,200 universities and about 160 markets. Teams write a sell-side-style equity research report on a locally assigned listed company and then defend it in a presentation before volunteer graders, typically CFA charterholders.

The 2026 Global Final is scheduled in Hong Kong — the first time the global final has been hosted there. Local societies run the first rounds; 2026–27 local hosts are asked to register by 28 August 2026. The product the student takes away is a written report and a presentation, not a six-month multi-asset track record.

Compared with QGF: the Research Challenge is deeper on one company and on the craft of the research note; QGF is broader on asset allocation, rebalancing discipline and a documented investment process across a semester. A student can do both. QGF is not a CFA Institute programme and does not award CFA Institute credit or scholarships.

CFA Institute Global Investing Game / AmplifyME simulator

Adjacent to the Research Challenge, CFA Institute has offered a university-facing Global Investing Game built on an AmplifyME simulator. Public 2025 coverage described a window from 22 September to 25 November, with the regional top 10% advancing to a 2 December global final and a CFA Program scholarship among the advertised awards. Treat those dates as last-cycle coverage; confirm the next window on the organiser’s pages.

The Game is a markets simulator with a competitive ladder. It is closer to a trading-floor classroom than to QGF’s monthly allocation committee. Teams that enjoy the Game’s pace often find QGF slower on purpose: ten minutes of formal discussion, one form, no intra-month tickets.

Again, adjacency is not affiliation. A scholarship advertised by another organiser is not a QGF prize. Students should not list QGF and the Global Investing Game on a CV as if they were the same credential.

Wharton Global High School Investment Competition

Wharton’s Global High School Investment Competition (often shortened to GHIC) is built for secondary-school teams of four to six students plus a teacher. The typical season runs about ten weeks from September to December, and registration in recent cycles has opened in August. The classroom is high-school economics and a first supervised contact with a simulated portfolio.

QGF’s eligibility is undergraduate and graduate. A Year 12 student looking at this page should usually be pointed to GHIC (or SIFMA, or SIC) rather than asked to stretch into a university contest. Teachers who run GHIC in the autumn sometimes send the same students, once they matriculate, to QGF in a later spring — that is a healthy pipeline, not a partnership.

SIFMA Stock Market Game

The SIFMA Foundation Stock Market Game is one of the longest-running classroom simulations in the United States. It is aimed at grades 4–12. Each team typically receives a virtual US$100,000 — the same notional starting number QGF uses, which is why the two programmes are often googled together — and plays for a season of roughly three to nine months depending on the local session.

The educational goal is literacy: what a share is, what a price is, why diversification matters. QGF assumes that literacy and then asks for a mandate, a written rationale, and six closed-end monthly decisions. A grade 8 classroom should not be entered into QGF. A university club that wants a gentler on-ramp for first-years can point them at public Stock Market Game explainers and then register them for QGF in the spring.

Student Investment Challenge (SIC)

The Student Investment Challenge serves grades 6–12. Public coverage of the 2026 calendar refers to a spring S15 cycle and an autumn S16 cycle. A distinctive feature, in the coverage we have seen, is that the strategy report is weighted heavily relative to raw return — a process-over-P&L emphasis that QGF shares in spirit on the process pillar, while still awarding the Cup on settlement balance.

SIC is a secondary-school product. QGF is a higher-education product. The similar language (“challenge”, “strategy report”) is coincidental in the way that many education brands converge; it is not evidence of a shared board or a shared simulator.

Bloomberg Global Trading Challenge 2026

Bloomberg’s Global Trading Challenge is a university contest typically fielded as teams of three to five students plus a faculty advisor, using Bloomberg market data and a trading-oriented brief. The emphasis is on listed-market trading inside a professional terminal culture: news, functions, and a competitive P&L.

Students with campus Bloomberg access often run GTC and QGF in the same year without conflict, because one is a trading challenge and the other is an allocation challenge. QGF permits Bloomberg as a data source under university licence; it does not require a terminal, does not use Bloomberg’s scoring, and does not issue Bloomberg-branded certificates.

How to choose — and how QGF is different

Choose QGF if you want to practise global multi-asset portfolio construction with a written rationale, under a diversification mandate, over a full semester, without a day-trading tape. Choose a research challenge if you want to live inside one company’s model. Choose a trading challenge if you want a high-frequency simulator. Choose a high-school game if you are not yet at university.

Whatever you choose, read that organiser’s rules, not this paragraph, before you pay a fee or submit a report. QGF itself remains free to enter.