A week in the Challenge

A typical week

QGF is not a daily blotter. Most weeks are research weeks. The noisy week is the one that contains the submission window. Treat the other three as the real work.

Monday–Tuesday. The form submitter circulates last month’s official balance, the team’s own shadow spreadsheet, and any factor headlines that landed after the previous form. One member owns “what changed in the world”; another owns “what that implies for our current weights”. Mentors, if you have them, get the same pack. Nobody submits anything yet.

Wednesday. A 45–90 minute seminar. The team writes three sentences: the base case, the risk case, and the one thing they would need to see to change a weight by more than ten percentage points. If they cannot write those sentences, they are not ready to rebalance. AI tools may summarise a filing the team has already opened; they may not propose the weights.

Thursday (submission week only). The ten-minute formal discussion. Percentages are spoken out loud, checked against the 10%–50% band, and typed by the form submitter. A second member reads the form back. Submit once. Walk away. There is no amendment path.

Friday. File the written rationale while the argument is still warm: what you did, why, which sources, which AI assistance, which risk you accepted. Store a PDF in the team folder. On non-submission weeks, Friday is for reading — a central-bank statement, a fund factsheet, a contrary view.

Outside that rhythm, there is nothing to click. No tick-by-tick tape, no chat-room tips, no overnight stop-loss. If that feels slow, you are in the right classroom. Portfolio construction is mostly waiting with a thesis.

The monthly calendar

Spring 2026 runs six numbered rounds inside the 1 March–31 August performance window. Exact clock times for each submission window are mailed to form submitters and posted on the team dashboard. A working picture:

Weekly leaderboard highlights on social channels use the latest published monthly balance; they are not a separate scoring period. There is no seventh round and no “bonus week”.

Asset classes in the fund basket

Each season QGF publishes a closed list of unitised funds. Teams do not pick stocks. They pick a mix of funds that already bundle many stocks, bonds or real assets. A representative Spring 2026-style basket — always confirm the live list on the dashboard — looks like this:

• Regional equity funds covering the United States, Europe, Japan, and an emerging-markets sleeve. These are the growth engines and the main source of month-to-month volatility.
• A global bond / quality-credit fund that exists to pay you for duration and spread, not for heroics.
• The USD currency fund, which is how QGF represents cash. It is still inside the 10%–50% band, so “all cash” is not a legal portfolio except as the month-one default for a missed form.
• A real-asset or thematic fund (for example a listed-infrastructure or energy-transition sleeve) that is optional in spirit but not in the band: if it is on the list, it must receive at least 10%.

Because every listed fund must receive between 10% and 50%, the basket size is itself a design choice. A list of five funds means your least-loved sleeve still gets a tenth of the account. That is the lesson: a mandate with a universe is not a blank page. If a fund is on the universe, you have already agreed it is eligible; your job is weight, not veto.

Unit prices start at US$1.00. They then move with ten investment-influencing factors plus comprehensive market factors. Each factor affects the current month only; it does not automatically persist. Teams who treat last month’s story as this month’s input without re-reading the pack tend to overfit a one-period headline.

Risk rules you cannot negotiate

The hard rules are in the numbered rulebook. The playbook version:

• Integer percentages only, summing to 100%.
• Each fund 10%–50% of the account. No 9%, no 51%, no “we’ll fix it next month” on an already-submitted form.
• One form per month. A second form cancels the change and restores last month’s ratio.
• No retrieve, no amend, no intra-month ticket, no short, no leverage, no off-list ticker.
• Mentors do not submit. AI does not submit. The named form submitter submits.
• Late or invalid = previous mix (or USD 100% in month one). No objections.

Soft risk — the kind the risk pillar watches — is the path of the account: large one-month drawdowns, a thesis that flip-flops every round, a rationale that cannot explain a 40% sleeve. You can still win the Cup with a volatile path if you finish with the highest balance. You will not receive a process commendation for a blank or contradictory write-up.

Submission artefacts

Every round produces two artefacts. Both matter.

1. The fund-change form. Machine-readable percentages. This is the only input that moves the virtual account. It must be in on time and valid. Keep a screenshot of the confirmation page.

2. The monthly rationale. Two to four pages is enough; eight is too many. Required headings: decision (the weights), thesis (why), risks (what would prove you wrong), sources (real ones), AI-use statement (tool, date, task). Optional: a small table of last month versus this month. File in English or Simplified Chinese.

After settlement, a third artefact appears if you are in an awarded category: the digital certificate, with ID and QR, verifiable at verify.html. You do not design this artefact. You also do not need to host it; the verification page does.

A research workflow that survives contact with a deadline

Start from the mandate, not from a hot take. Write the policy portfolio in month one as if you had to live with it for six months with only modest tilts. Use the later rounds to express views the factors actually justify. Keep a living bibliography. When two teammates disagree, record both views in the rationale and then pick; unrecorded disagreement becomes a mysterious 15% move that no one can defend in May.

Do not chase the public weekly highlight reel. Those posts celebrate a snapshot. The Cup is a six-month integral. Teams that rotate into last month’s winner every round are usually the ones who discover, in August, that they paid the spread six times.

When you are stuck, read the rulebook, then the FAQ, then mail support@qgf.org. Do not mail the committee a new set of percentages after the window; they will not be applied.