Official rulebook
The fifteen rules that govern every edition of the QGF Global Portfolio Challenge. Read them carefully before you submit your first allocation form. By taking part in the Challenge, every team agrees to abide by these rules in full.
Starting setup
At the beginning of the investment competition, each team is granted a starting fund of US$100,000 available for investment.
At the beginning of the competition, the unit price of every fund starts at US$1.00.
The fund investment competition runs for a total of six months.
The price of each fund is driven primarily by ten investment-influencing factors plus a set of comprehensive market factors.
Each factor only affects the current month's pricing - the impact does not carry over automatically into the following month.
Teams & mentors
Each team must nominate one member who is responsible for collecting investment-influencing factors and submitting the team's allocation forms on its behalf.
Each team has ten minutes to discuss its strategy and submit the form for each round.
Mentors are present to help each team interpret the factors affecting the investment environment. Mentors may not make any investment decisions on behalf of the team.
Monthly submissions
At the start of the competition, each team must allocate and invest its starting fund. If a team declines to allocate in the first month, submits its form late, or submits invalid form data, the entire balance will be automatically allocated to the USD currency fund for that first month.
In every subsequent month, each team must submit its monthly fund change form on time. If a form is submitted late or contains invalid data, that month's submission is invalidated and the funds will continue to be allocated according to the previous month's ratio.
No objections are allowed.
A team may submit only one fund change form per month. If more than one form is submitted, that month's change is cancelled and the allocation will continue at the previous month's ratio.
No objections are allowed.
Once a fund change form has been submitted, it cannot be retrieved or amended for that round.
Each team's account balance is announced once per month. Teams are encouraged to track their monthly balance independently alongside the official announcement.
Allocation limits
The number of units purchased or converted for each fund must represent between 10% and 50% of the team's account balance, and must be an integer percentage.
If a form is filled out incorrectly, that month's change is cancelled and the allocation continues according to the previous month's ratio.
No objections are allowed.
Why the 10% - 50% band?
The band keeps every portfolio meaningfully diversified (no all-in bets) while still allowing teams to take a conviction position on a fund they believe will outperform. Stay inside the band and your allocation will always be valid.
Results & disputes
At the close of the competition, the winning team is the team with the highest account balance on the day of settlement.
In the event of any dispute, the results announced by the QGF Global Portfolio Challenge organising committee are final and binding.
Glossary
The numbered rules above are the legal baseline. These definitions are how the committee reads them in Spring 2026.
- Account balance
- The marked-to-model value of a team’s virtual holdings on a published date, in US dollars. It is the Cup metric on settlement day (Rule 14).
- Allocation / fund-change form
- The single monthly submission that states an integer percentage for every fund in the season’s basket. One form per month; a second form cancels the change (Rule 10). Once submitted it cannot be retrieved (Rule 11).
- Band (10%–50%)
- Each fund in the published basket must receive between 10% and 50% of the account, as an integer percentage. The band is a hard validity constraint, not a scoring suggestion (Rule 13).
- Form submitter
- The one nominated team member authorised to collect factors and send forms (Rule 04). Mentors are not form submitters.
- Investment-influencing factors
- The ten published drivers plus comprehensive market factors that move unit prices in the current month only (Rule 07). They do not automatically persist.
- Process pillar
- A companion score based on the monthly rationale (sources, AI-use statement, mapping from thesis to weights). It does not override Rule 14 for the Cup. It decides commendations and school certificates.
- Risk pillar
- A companion score based on the path of the account (drawdown, consistency with the team’s own month-one risk note). Extreme swings are labelled, not banned.
- USD currency fund
- The cash vehicle in the basket. It is still inside the 10%–50% band except for the automatic 100% default when month one is missed or invalid (Rule 08).
- Virtual fund
- The simulated US$100,000 granted at the start (Rule 01). It is not real money and is not investment advice.
Prohibited conduct
A team that breaks these rules may lose the process pillar, be removed from featured write-ups, be disqualified from the Cup, or be refused a future season. Rule 15 still makes announced results final once the committee has decided.
- Material non-public information. Using internship, family-office or private-group information that is not public is forbidden, even if it would have helped the simulated P&L.
- Off-list instruments. Individual stocks, options, shorts, leverage, crypto-assets, private placements and any ticker not on the season’s fund list are out of bounds.
- Ghost writing and generative filing. A model may summarise a source the team opened. It may not choose the weights or author a rationale the named students cannot explain. Undisclosed AI use is a process violation; using AI as the decision-maker is a conduct violation.
- Fabricated sources. Invented citations, invented factor prints, or screenshots that do not match the dashboard.
- Multiple scoring seats. One student, one team, one season. Submitting a form for a second team is cheating.
- Mentor capture. A mentor who presses submit, types the percentages, or writes the rationale in the students’ names converts the team into an ineligible entry.
- Platform abuse. Probing, scraping behind authentication, or attempting to reopen a closed window by technical means. Confirmed outages are handled by the committee; “I forgot” is not an outage.
- Harassment. Targeting other teams, coordinators or staff in channels associated with the Challenge.
- Certificate fraud. Editing a PDF, cropping a QR, or claiming an award that does not verify at verify.html.
How to raise a concern
Write to info@qgf.org with the team name, round, and evidence. Do not publish accusations on the public leaderboard comments. The committee will not reverse a result on anonymous hearsay, and will not discuss a named student with a journalist except through the certificate the student chooses to share.
Mandate and constraints (teaching example)
Spring 2026 is archive: registration closed 27 February; the simulation window ended 31 August. This card is a method aid. It does not add a numbered rule. Unique role of this site: a portfolio-simulation cycle. Educational simulation only.
| Field | Write before month one | Invented teaching fill |
|---|---|---|
| Mandate | One sentence the team can live with for six months. | “A diversified global sleeve for a student endowment that must stay invested.” |
| Constraints | Bands, no short, no leverage, one form per month — as published. | Each listed sleeve 10%–50%; USD cash is still a sleeve; no off-list ticker. |
| Comparison benchmark | What you will compare the path to, not a promised return. | The published factor set and last month’s own mix — not a CFA exam, not a Wharton course, not a Bloomberg terminal product. |
| Allowed sources | Public filings, the ten monthly factors, named news you actually opened. | A 10-K you cite; a factor note dated in the round. No fabricated URL. |
| Must check | Submitter is a named student; AI-use stated; screenshot of confirmation kept. | Mentor does not press submit. Late form = previous mix. |
This Challenge is not a CFA, Wharton, or Bloomberg programme. Neighbouring names on The Field are landscape only.
After the cycle: learning self-evaluation
Official scoring is the three published pillars (return / risk / process). This worksheet is a method suggestion for teams whose window has closed. It does not reopen Spring 2026. Same sheet on FAQ.
- ☐ Risk recognition. Can you name your maximum one-month drawdown and what you would not repeat?
- ☐ Quality of reasons. Did each rationale cite a source you opened, an assumption, and a limit?
- ☐ Record completeness. Six forms, six rationales, AI-use stated, confirmation screenshots kept.
- ☐ Team work. Who submitted, who dissented, whose view was recorded then refused.
A high balance with two missing write-ups is a Cup path, not a process commendation. Unique role of this site: a portfolio-simulation cycle.
Scoring worked example
This example is illustrative. It uses round numbers so a team can see how the three pillars sit together. It does not describe a real Spring 2026 team, and it does not name students.
Two hypothetical teams, Alpha and Beta, both start at US$100,000. After six rounds:
| Team | Month-end balances (US$ thousand) | Settlement balance | Maximum one-month drawdown | Process notes (six rationales) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alpha | 100 → 108 → 101 → 114 → 109 → 121 → 126 | 126,000 | 6.5% (month 2) | Six complete rationales; sources cited; AI-use stated twice as “summarised a 10-K” |
| Beta | 100 → 119 → 95 → 130 → 118 → 140 → 128 | 128,000 | 20.2% (month 2) | Two missing rationales; one fabricated citation caught on review; no AI statement on a clearly generated page |
Return pillar / Cup. Beta has the higher settlement balance (128,000 vs 126,000) and would take the Cup under Rule 14, unless disqualified for conduct. A fabricated citation is conduct, not a mere process ding; if the committee confirms it, Beta is out and Alpha takes the Cup. If the citation error is judged sloppy rather than invented, Beta keeps the Cup and is excluded from process commendations.
Risk pillar. Alpha’s path is quieter (6.5% max drawdown vs 20.2%). Alpha would receive the risk commendation in a field of two. The leaderboard would still print Beta’s 20.2% so readers can see the path, not only the finish.
Process pillar. Alpha files six rationales that a follow-up call can explain. Beta’s missing write-ups score zero for those rounds; a generated page without an AI statement is penalised; a fabricated citation is a conduct matter. Process never adds dollars to the account. It decides who is featured, who receives a school-cohort certificate when the university crosses 100 students, and who is invited to write a post-season note.
Tie-break reminder. If two teams finish on the same cent, the order is: higher process total, then smaller maximum drawdown, then earlier registration timestamp. There is no “popular vote” and no late form that magically applies.
How certificate verification works after awards
After settlement the programme office issues digital Certificates of Achievement for the Cup, for pillar commendations, and for university cohorts that met the 100-student threshold. Participants do not design or self-issue these files.
- Staff generate a record (name as the student asked us to print it, award line, season) on an internal page that search engines are told not to index (
/cert/issue.html). - A checksum is computed over a canonical string of that record. The public URL includes the ID and the checksum (
v=). - The holder receives a PDF/PNG and a URL. A QR code on the art points at cert/verify.html with those parameters already in the query string.
- Anyone — employer, registrar, journalist — pastes the URL or ID into verify.html or opens the QR. A valid checksum renders the certificate. A cropped or edited file fails.
- If a name is misspelled, we re-issue with a new checksum and retire the old one so a later lookup of the broken file fails rather than showing a ghost PDF.
QGF does not publish a crawlable directory of named student winners on this website. Verification is one certificate at a time, which is a privacy choice as well as an anti-scraping choice. A screenshot without a working QR is not evidence. A neighbouring competition listed on The Field does not issue QGF certificates, and we do not issue theirs.
Questions about the rules?
If anything in the rulebook is unclear, the QGF Challenge Support Centre is here to help before the competition starts.