作者： chenchen

While the KWHS Investment Competition has been around since 2012, each year it delivers unexpected ideas and experiences. The 2019 Global Finale weekend on May 3 and 4 was no exception. A new first: the top nine teams traveling to Wharton from India, China, Brazil and the U.S. to compete in a stand-alone Global Finale of the best teams from around the world. A new first: a Chinese team from Region 1 placing in the Global top three. A new first: a Friday learning day equipped with spaghetti and marshmallow towers and entrepreneurial innovation. Oh, and a Yeti – it was the first time in seven years we’ve had the Abominable Snowman make it to the 8^th floor of Wharton’s Jon M. Huntsman Hall as part of a Global Finale team presentation.

What wasn’t new, other than the players? More than 50 determined and financially savvy high school students, led by educators and advisors, showing up to give the 10-minute presentations of their lives. They had all contributed to 10 weeks of team trading, deliberating and strategizing in hopes of landing potential client Sachin Rekhi, resulting in the submission of nearly 550 final investment reports in December 2018. Then came three regional final rounds in India, China and the U.S., identifying the top nine teams from those countries (plus a tenth wildcard pick from the U.K.) They would go in front of a panel of five industry experts, two representing the day’s sponsors – Aberdeen Standard Investments and Vanguard — in hopes of winning the title as the competition’s most competent, reliable and creative asset-management team.

The full lineup of Saturday’s competitors included:

• Pegasus, YK Pao School, Shanghai – Region 1, China, First Place
• Filter Coffee Investments, Amity International School, Noida – Region 2, India, First Place
• EVA (Eagles Value Added), Graded American School, São Paulo – Region 3, Brazil, First Place
• OG, RDFZ, Beijing – Region 1, China, Second Place (chose not to present in the Global Finale)
• Scion Capital, Jayshree Periwal International School, Jaipur – Region 2, India, Second Place
• Yeti Investors, Maclay School, Tallahassee – Region 3, U.S., Second Place
• CFuture, WHBC of Wuhan Foreign Languages School, Wuhan – Region 1, China, Third Place
• Olympians, Amity International School, Vasundhra Sector 6, Ghaziabad – Region 2, India, Third Place
• Sage Hill, Sage Hill School, Newport Coast – Region 3, U.S., Third Place
• DC Capital, Dulwich College London – Region 3, U.K., KWHS Wildcard Pick

Following nine impressive team presentations and in-depth Q&A sessions by the judging panel, four top teams (including a tie for third) received trophies and $5,000, $2,000 and $1,000 respectively for their schools from sponsor, Vanguard.

The 2019 KWHS Investment Competition Global Finale winners are:

• First Place: Filter Coffee Investments
• Second Place: Scion Capital
• Third Place: Pegasus
• Third Place: Yeti Investors

Taking a front-row seat for the festivities was this year’s Global Finale panel of judges. They included Srinath Chigullapalli, senior IT program manager at Vanguard; David Lawrence, founder of RANE (Risk Assistance Network+Exchange) and long-time managing director at Goldman Sachs; Charles Rejonis, senior IT director in the Wharton Research Data Services group at the University of Pennsylvania; Fionna Ross, senior ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) analyst on the North American Equity team at Aberdeen Standard Investments; and John Squires, a partner at Dilworth Paxson law firm and former chief IP counsel for Goldman Sachs. Special guest Chris Demetriou, CEO for the Americas, Aberdeen Standard Investments, returned for a second year representing the competition’s long-time sponsor, to welcome the teams and provide insight into trends in asset management.

Underscored by words like “phenomenal” and “inspiring,” the judges honored the competing teams with their reflections on the day. “I was so excited to come judge again this year,” said Ross, who also judged the 2017 Global Finale. “You all show such professionalism and competence. It was a difficult decision to try to sort out the rankings. You should all be extremely proud of how you performed today.”

Lawrence, who also judged the competition in 2018, praised the teams’ energy and knowledge. “When I left Goldman Sachs, I told the then-head of [the company] that my compensation at Goldman was never reflected in my W-2 statement, it was in the relationships that I was able to form,” noted Lawrence. “I know this is an investment challenge, but your investment in friendships and associations is no less important.” Adding that every team showed “extraordinary teamwork,” he urged participants to value collaboration in all that they pursue.

Eli Lesser, KWHS’s new executive director of high school and summer programs, was amazed by his first KWHS Learning Day and Global Finale. “Our dean, Geoffrey Garrett, has a vision of Wharton as a place that ‘incubates ideas to transform business, to power Insights to reinvent decision-making, and create leaders who change the world.’ I am proud that in our Global Finale this past Saturday we saw high school students embody this vision,” noted Lesser, who began his career as a high school teacher. “Each team presented the ideas that they incubated during the current school year; used new powerful insights to build a team and make decisions; and ultimately become leaders that we know will someday transform the world! In my new position, I am looking forward to continuing to meet young people and their teachers through our programming.”

For more information on the KWHS Investment Competition, please visit the KWHS Competitions Page. Be sure to follow us on Instagram @KWHSLife, Twitter @WhartonHS and check out our KWHS Facebook page for many more photos and reflections from this year’s 2019 KWHS Investment Competition Finale. We will begin promoting the 2019-2020 competition soon, so make sure you are registered with KWHS to receive all the updates! #KWHSInvests

Students arriving at the Penn Wharton China Center in Beijing, China, on the morning of Saturday, March 2, 2019, for the KWHS Investment Competition Region 1 finals, were greeted by a statue of Benjamin Franklin sitting on a bench — a familiar icon to anyone who has visited the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia, Pa. Franklin, in addition to being a founding father of the U.S., founded Penn in 1755.

These high school students were also familiar with a Ben Franklin quote found on the KWHS Investment Competition website: “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

The March 2 event was a living testament to that sentiment. Throughout the day, 12 teams of high school students from Region 1 who had been selected to compete in the semi-finals – primarily from schools in China, and one from Mongolia – presented their compelling investment strategies and demonstrated their new financial knowledge to a panel of industry judges and an audience filled with students, teachers and parents.

David Lin, a teacher from YK Pao School in Shanghai, watched with particular interest as the presentations unfolded. Lin was the mentor and advisor to two finalist teams from YK Pao, Pegasus and YKPS Unicorn. “I am in total agreement with KWHS’s mission to spread financial literacy among young people through this Wharton Investment Competition,” Lin noted. “It’s becoming even more important nowadays for the next generation of the rising wealthy families in China, who are mostly single children, to receive earlier business/financial education to help them preserve and better manage their wealth soon to be inherited in the next decade or so.”

The KWHS mission of financial literacy was an unmistakable theme of the day, as students pitched dynamic investment strategies informed by everything from micro and macro economic (interest rate hikes!) and stock market trends, to corporate profits and portfolio values. In the end, however, the judges selected three top teams to proceed to the KWHS Investment Competition Global Finale at Wharton’s Philadelphia campus on May 3 and 4. The winners of the Region 1 finals were:

• 1st Place: Pegasus, YK Pao School, Shanghai, China
• 2nd Place: OG, The HS Affiliated to Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
• 3rd Place: CFuture, WHBC of Wuhan Foreign Languages School, Hubei, China

Evaluating the day’s presentations were I Chuan Tao, executive general manager of wealth management, China Merchants Bank; Eric Leng, managing partner at Crescendo Capital Management, a hedge fund based in Beijing; and Yanbing Qiu, chief investment officer and board secretary at Hetai Life.

The judges were especially impressed by the logic and data used by the winning teams to support their creative investment strategies, as well as those teams that expressed a charismatic teamwork style that set them apart from the lineup of finalists.

The six-person Pegasus team, for example, incorporated clever animation into its presentation that elevated its creativity scores and added a new dimension to its solid “High Yield ESG [Environmental, Social & Governance] Equity Portfolio Proposal.” Judges loved the team’s holistic presentation approach, incorporating the technical, analytical and teamwork aspects of their competition journey. The team declared, “As we worked together as a team through all the late nights, weekends, and after-school meetings, we ensured that we met at least eight hours per week. Now that we are at the end of the investment process, we have gained confidence both inside and outside of our class as well as the fulfillment knowing that we have acquired financial knowledge that can serve us for a lifetime.”

The seven members of Team OG used both top-down and bottom-up analysis to evaluate investments and risk and develop a tech-focused strategy fitting for tech entrepreneur and potential client, Sachin Rekhi. The team focused on industries with stable growth rates and companies with “good leadership, strong monopoly power, less cyclical earnings, and high ethical standards.” OG team leader Hangbo Guo was also a member of last year’s Region 1 winning team, RDFZICC.

CFuture delivered an especially energetic presentation as the team’s six members detailed a creative “Rock and Roll” investment strategy for short and long-term investments. The team’s deep commitment to learning was evident: “Initially, we hardly knew anything about real-world investment,” they said. “We started fresh from learning terminology, to investigating industries, analyzing corporation’s financial reports and finally designing a portfolio of our own. We are amazed that we successfully analyzed different sectors and companies by using a variety of methods (SWOT analysis, Porter’s Five Forces, and all kinds of financial ratios).”

The winning teams were awarded plaques, as well as $500, $300 and $200 USD respectively for their schools, given by generous KWHS Investment Competition award sponsor, Brickwork Ratings. All the teams were also treated to words of wisdom by the day’s judges, who urged them to keep working hard and to look to the “humanity” of their financial decisions, not just the numbers. They also reminded students to drill down to the basics through all the many layers of new financial knowledge. “Investment is a very uncertain business,” suggested Qiu of Hetai Life. “It’s very hard to find the right way to do it. Go back to the fundamentals of risk and return and that will serve you well.”

After a busy few weeks traveling the globe, during which the KWHS team also held a dynamic Region 2 investment competition finals at the National Stock Exchange in Mumbai, India, we are now preparing for the third semi-final round to be held this Saturday, March 16, at Wharton in Philadelphia, Pa. With teams from Brazil, Canada, the U.K. and the U.S., it promises to be a powerhouse of financial skills and collaborative creativity. Stay tuned for the results and for a final list of the winning teams that will advance to the KWHS Investment Competition Global Finale at Wharton on May 3 and 4.

On the morning of Saturday, February 23, 2019, teams of high school students and their advisors streamed into the sunlit atrium of a Mumbai-based financial hub that few outsiders ever access: The National Stock Exchange of India. Many of them gazed in awe at the NSE logos, banners, and monitors delivering news about the financial markets, and they took a moment to visit the vibrant rangoli, a colorful, floor-based design of rich red, blue, green, pink and orange powders, that was created especially for this day. Manvir Singh Rana, a teacher at Amity International School in Noida, India, noted that he has long taught a unit on the NSE to his students, adding: “It’s incredible to actually be here.”

And so began the fourth-annual KWHS Investment Competition Region 2 Finale, during which the top 12 teams from Region 2 – this year all from India-based high schools — spent a full day at the NSE for a chance to present their team strategies and new investing knowledge to a panel of six professional judges. The judges included: Pankaj Dinodia of Dinodia Capital Advisors, Kisha Gupta of Infosys, Vivek Kulkarni of Brickwork Ratings, Rajat Kumar of ABP Digital, Rajesh Sehgal of Equanimity Investments, and Yatrik Vin of the National Stock Exchange of India Limited. The National Stock Exchange partnered with KWHS to host the event and Brickwork Ratings was an event sponsor, providing financial prizes for the winners. Dr. Biswajit Saha, director (skill education and training) of the Central Board of Secondary Education in India, was the keynote speaker.

The 12 teams each delivered powerful 10-minute strategy pitches, navigating P/E ratios, share prices, SWOT analyses and macroeconomic trends with confidence and conviction. And they all survived a tough five minutes of provocative questions from the judges. Even so, only three teams could be selected to advance to the upcoming KWHS Investment Competition Global Finale at Wharton in Philadelphia on May 4. The winners of this year’s Region 2 Finale were:

1^st Place: Filter Coffee Investments from Amity International School, Noida

2^nd Place: Scion Capital, Jayshree Periwal International School, Jaipur

3^rd Place: Olympians, Amity International School, Vashundhra Sector-6, Ghaziabad

As the presentations wrapped up, Dinodia, who along with Kumar and Sehgal has judged the regional competition in India for the past several years, remarked, “What a day! The bar just keeps getting higher and higher.”

While all the teams were technically sound, their creative and thoughtful investment strategy themes – and how they expressed them – were often a key differentiator.

Filter Coffee Investments went all the way with its java theme, pouring it throughout the energetic presentation. The pitch? “What is a perfect cup of coffee? A bitter shot of espresso, a frothy cappuccino or a steamy latte? Well, the truth is, there is no one recipe for a perfect cup, as it is a function of different tastes and preferences. Similarly, there is no single portfolio ideal for all individuals.” The team created “The Percolator,” a software that filters potential investments to present “the best possible options for analysis.” The team also incorporated The Magic Cup Model, which identifies under-performing and over-performing stocks, and a COFFEE model of analysis that looked at a company’s competitive standing, financial past, ethics and other key factors.

Scion put forth an equally impressive “Swaying Iceberg” model that inspired the team to use machine learning to inform both its long-term and short-term strategies. The team followed up with a comprehensive analysis of the company Under Armour. Scion’s extensive research and deep understanding of its client’s needs really elevated the effectiveness of its teams strategy.

Olympians, building on potential client Sachin Rekhi’s resolution to run a half marathon, focused on “investing in food, fitness and new technologies that enable us to live longer and healthier lives.” The team spotlighted Nike as a company that followed its strategy and ideals, and the team took on different Greek god roles to illustrate their individual strengths.

Each of the winning teams took home trophies, as well as $500, $300 and $200 respectively from Brickwork Ratings for their schools.

‘I Loved Everything’

The competition marked most teams’ first exposure to trading and investing. And while nine of them couldn’t claim prizes, many valued the weeks of learning. “Our knowledge regarding investments increased manifold over the course of the competition,” said Ketan Kedia, student leader of Mr. Stock’s Enterprise, which traveled to Mumbai all the way from D.A.V. Model School in Durgapur, India. “We were the first team to participate from our school. Our school will continue participating in such competitions both to learn and to become experienced. This competition is a torchbearer for entry of financial literacy into our school curriculum. Indian school children are deprived of basic finance education, which adversely affects their decisions in the future.” Added his teammate Harsh Agarwal: “Traveling to Mumbai and delivering at NSE is a memory I will cherish throughout my life. I loved everything about it.”

The 2019 KWHS Region 2 Investment Competition represented a first-time partnership between Knowledge@Wharton High School and the National Stock Exchange of India, including the NSE Academy Limited. During the event, Vikram Limaye, CEO of the NSE, said, “NSE has been engaged in promoting financial literacy and financial market courses in the country. A step in this direction is the collaboration with Knowledge@Wharton. Financial education for students is an important tool to improve the financial capability of our youth and our communities. We are confident that our collaboration with Knowledge@Wharton will further strengthen our mutual efforts in financial education.”

Serguei Netessine, Wharton’s vice dean of global initiatives, echoed those sentiments, saying that Saturday’s competition in Mumbai illustrated “what can be achieved when partners collaborate on a shared mission of financial literacy and building skills to empower the next generation of global leaders.”

Filter Coffee Investments, Scion Capital and Olympians have already begun to prepare for the KWHS Investment Competition Global Finale at Wharton on May 3 and 4. They will be presenting their strategies to the judges, along with the top three teams from the regional finals in Beijing, China on March 2 and Philadelphia on March 16. Be sure to register with KWHS to get all the results of this year’s KWHS Investment Competition – and updates about when it’s time to sign up for next year’s challenge. For more information, visit the KWHS Investment Competition website.

Madeleine Roberts admits that the thought of competing in the KWHS Investment Competition Region 3 finals gave her moments of anxiety prior to the big day on Saturday, March 16. Even so, her fears quickly subsided as she stepped off the elevator onto the 8^th floor of Wharton’s Jon M. Huntsman Hall in Philadelphia and began to survey the landscape. “The worst part by far was all the time leading up to the competition,” said Roberts, a junior at Maclay School in Tallahassee, Florida, U.S., who led the four-student competition team, Yeti Investors. “Once we saw the room, I felt very relieved. It wasn’t the giant, cold lecture hall I was expecting. We were very excited to share our strategy, and that seemed to lessen the fear of presenting.”

That kind of confidence and enthusiasm, developed through 12 weeks of absorbing new investment concepts and strategies, and then packaging them into colorful and compelling presentations, was a signature trait of all 12 student teams competing in the Region 3 finals last Saturday.

The event, the third of three global semifinal rounds in February and March to identify the top nine teams to advance to the competition’s Global Finale at Wharton in May, brought together more than 100 students, teachers, parents, professionals and supporters from several different countries within the boundaries of the competition’s “Region 3,” including Brazil, Canada, the U.S. and the U.K.

The 12 teams each delivered powerful 10-minute strategy pitches, navigating P/E ratios, share prices, SWOT analyses and macroeconomic trends with ease and conviction. And they all survived – if not thrived — through five minutes of provocative questions from the four industry experts invited to sit on the March 16 judging panel. Those professionals were: Matthew Carlone, a certified financial analyst and Wharton MBA candidate in finance; Heather Crist, divisional director of the Midwest Region for UBS Global Wealth Management; Caitlin Cronin, junior analyst with Aberdeen Standard Investments; and Mukund Rao, senior technologist at Wharton Research Data Services, which operates Wharton’s OTIS Online Trading and Investment Simulator.

In the end, Roberts’ eagerness to share her team’s strategy projected well to the judges. The winners of the 2019 Region 3 Finale were:

• 1st Place: EVA (Eagles Value Added), Graded American School of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
• 2nd Place: Yeti Investors, Maclay School, Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.
• 3rd Place: Sage Hill, Sage Hill School, Newport Coast, California, U.S.

The winners received engraved glass plaques; $500, $300 and $200 respectively for their winning schools from competition financial awards sponsor, Brickwork Ratings; and an invitation to compete against the winners of Region 1 and Region 2 during the upcoming KWHS Investment Competition Global Finale at Wharton in May.

The winning Region 3 teams had unique strategies and experiences to share in their presentations. EVA built a value-oriented portfolio for the competition’s potential client Sachin Rekhi, that was customized to his long-term needs by, in part, creating a Social Value-added (SVA) evaluation model for their stock choices. “Our biggest challenge this year was looking into more complex investment tools, such as SVA and the Markowitz Efficient Frontier,” the team noted. “This year’s teamwork, cooperation, organization and commitment to learning proved to be essential when building a long-term investment portfolio.”

Yeti Investors built a sound strategy enriched by innovation and humor, creating the character Freddie the “money-managing” yeti through which to deliver their approach and help showcase their new financial knowledge. The team’s FRED quantitative, bottom-up criteria made “finding stocks in sizable snowdrifts easier” by screening portfolio stock choices through Fifty RSI (a stock’s relative strength index value must be under 50 at entry point); Relative value (a stock must trade at a discount to its peers and its historic levels); Earnings (a three-year trailing earnings growth of at least 10%); and Dividends (a stock must pay quarterly, semi-annual or annual dividends). The team mentioned that they faced unexpected challenges in their competition journey when they suffered heavy power outages resulting from Hurricane Michael hitting the Florida coast.

Sage Hill’s long-term strategy targeted “financially solid companies that have a strong potential for future growth.” The team also specified a short-term strategy totaling 20% of its total investment strategy to meet Rekhi’s annual donation to the ASPCA. The teams OMG or Operating Metrics Grade, a point system used for quantitative analysis that was similar to school GPA, looked at factors such as return on invested capital, free cash flow sales, five-year past growth and financial health to funnel out portfolio choices. A separate qualitative analysis predicted if companies would remain profitable for the next five years, an important forward-looking perspective within the team’s approach.

In a time of reflection during Saturday’s competition, the judges all had high praise for the 12 teams’ presentations and client pitches. “Your sophistication in investment knowledge is amazing,” said Carlone, who also encouraged the group of novice investors to “focus on forward-looking company performance, rather than on the performance for the last 10 years” when designing a sound long-term investment strategy.

Crist of UBS urged the teams to remember their audience when developing a strategy for a specific client. “While returns and a solid investment framework are absolutely foundations of any good investment philosophy and strategy, returns only matter so much in the relationship with your client, whether it’s an institutional client or, in this case, a retail client,” Crist noted. “I don’t think anyone mentioned Sachin’s wife, Ada. Dexter the dog got some honorable mentions. What if while you were making this pitch, your client had turned to his wife and said, ‘What do you think about this, they showed my picture, my quotes, only me?’ You’re all going to have good and bad returns. The best portfolio managers have years when their returns aren’t great, but what they rely on is the relationship with their client. Keep that in mind because it will carry you through everything.”

Region 3 teams were treated to a visit by the leaders of last year’s Global and Region 3 winning team, All You can Eat Buffett from Virginia. Sid Muralidhar and Suchet Taori, who are now freshmen at Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia, shared insights and advice about how the KWHS Investment Competition has created new opportunities for them this past year. “Talking about this achievement can really help, whether you win or lose,” said Muralidhar. “We’ve leveraged our success in this competition and the knowledge we’ve learned through this competition to get different internships and job opportunities and when talking to employers.” They both advised students in the room to share their new financial knowledge with others and to step outside their comfort zones and continually try new things. For example, Sid and Suchet have combined their separate interests in finance and neuroscience to explore the field of neuroeconomics, or how brain signals determine financial choices.

Reflecting on the overall experience, Madeleine Roberts of Yeti Investors was grateful for her heightened financial awareness and knowledge. “There aren’t many opportunities like this for high schoolers; the ability to gain hands-on experience with money management and investing is truly amazing,” she said. “We’re all very excited for the global competition. It’s such a wonderful and unique experience that I feel very privileged to get to attend!”

Looking ahead to the 2019 Global Finale, the stage for a competitive showcase of winning teams from around the world is now set. The following teams will be returning to the Wharton campus in a few weeks to present their investment strategies and competition highlights on May 4. They will also be invited to participate in a special learning day on May 3, which is a chance for them to learn about careers in finance and the admissions process, as well as meet one another before the big day.

The 2019 KWHS Investment Competition global finalists are:

• Pegasus – Region 1, China, First Place
• Filter Coffee Investments – Region 2, India, First Place
• EVA (Eagles Value Added) – Region 3, Brazil, First Place
• OG – Region 1, China, Second Place
• Scion Capital – Region 2, India, Second Place
• Yeti Investors – Region 3, U.S., Second Place
• CFuture – Region 1, China, Third Place
• OLYMPIANS – Region 2, India, Third Place
• Sage Hill – Region 3, U.S., Third Place
• DC Capital – Region 3, U.K., KWHS Team Wildcard Pick

Stay tuned for the news of this year’s top global asset-management teams. In fact, don’t miss any KWHS news, including our plans for next year’s investment competition! Sign up today for our biweekly newsletter. #KWHSInvests

As we set out on the 2018-2019 KWHS Investment Competition, we knew this journey would be different. For one, all three competing regions – vying to become finalists in our regional competitions based in China, India and the U.S. in February and March of 2019 – started trading simultaneously on the OTIS platform on October 1, 2018. What had for years been a global competition with three separate onramps, was now one grand rivalry involving more than 2,000 teams around the world. Game on!

Additionally, the client profile had changed from the perhaps all-too-familiar wealthy young entrepreneur Jack Abraham, to another young Silicon Valley star with a somewhat similar background but different investing needs, Sachin Rekhi.

Change is good. This year’s competition has been the most robust on record, with more than 900 teams submitting mid-project team reviews, up from 480 last year, and nearly 570 teams detailing final strategies and teamwork dynamics in comprehensive competition reports, up from nearly 300 last year. Some 20 countries were represented among those teams that followed the competition through to the end. KWHS is grateful for a new partnership with the National Stock Exchange of India, which helped us recruit student teams from new high schools throughout the country.

Our intrepid team of evaluators from Aberdeen Standard Investments in Philadelphia, Pa., U.S., tackled hundreds of final reports through the Christmas break and into the new year, assessing if they met important criteria (such as addressing Mr. Rekhi’s short and long-term needs), and looking for several pillars of strength, including an understanding of their client, strategy articulation, analysis and teamwork. “We looked for groups that took the client’s preferences beyond [the basics] and made sure they provided a good level of detail in their research process and their experience,” notes Sarina Manetta, a graduate business analyst at Aberdeen Standard Investments who led the judging team. “The teams that made it to consideration for the Top 12 stood out either because of creativity, or because they went above and beyond in developing their own methods.”

And with that, here are the 2019 KWHS Investment Competition top 12 finalist teams:

Region 1

• Arithmancers – Eton House International School, Suzhou, China
• CFuture – WHBC of Wuhan Foreign Languages School, Wuhan, China
• CHILLAX – Hangzhou Foreign Languages School, Hangzhou, China
• Coconut Union Jingshan – Beijing Jingshan School, Beijing, China
• DCSInvests – Dulwich College Shanghai Pudong, Shanghai, China
• Deficit Demolition Team – Hangzhou No. 14 High School, Hangzhou, China
• Lux Capital – WHBC of Wuhan Foreign Languages School, Wuhan, China
• Money Scoopers – Shanghai High School Intl. Division, Shanghai, China
• OG – The High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
• Pegasus – YK Pao School, Shanghai, China
• Shildeg-KWHS – Shildeg School, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
• YKPS Unicorn – YK Pao School, Shanghai, China

Region 2

• AlphaBulls – Podar International School, Mumbai, India
• C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me) – Greenwood High International School, Bangalore, India
• Et Tauri Auream – The Doon School, Dehradun, India
• Filter Coffee Investments – Amity International School, Noida, India
• Infinito Asset Managers – Amity Intl. School, Sector-46, Gurgaon, India
• InvestoMania – Sushila Birla Girls’ School, Kolkata, India
• Keepers of the BULLevard – Amity International School, Noida, India
• Mr. Stock’s Enterprise – DAV Model School, Durgapur, India
• OLYMPIANS – Amity Intl. School, Vasundhra Sector-6, Ghaziabad, India
• Scion Capital – Jayshree Periwal International School, Jaipur, India
• SnF Capital – SVKM, Mumbai, India
• Wallstreet Wolves – The PSBB Millennium School, Chennai, India

Region 3

• The BRLs – Colégio Bandeirantes, São Paulo, Brazil
• DC Capital – Dulwich College, London, United Kingdom
• EVA (Eagles Value Added) – Graded American School of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
• Lions Investment – Saint Theresa of Lisieux Catholic High School, Richmond Hill, Canada
• Make Bank – Palo Alto High School, California, United States
• Midas Money Management – The Harker School, California, United States
• Princeton Tigers – Princeton High School, New Jersey, United States
• Prophet – Moorestown Friends School, New Jersey, United States
• Sage Hill – Sage Hill School, California, United States
• Saints Capital – St. George’s School, Vancouver, Canada
• TJ Asset Management (TJAM) – Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Virginia, United States
• Yeti Investors – Maclay School, Florida, United States

Congratulations to all of this year’s finalists! Be sure to follow their progress in the regional competitions by checking back to the KWHS Newsroom and registering with KWHS to receive our bi-weekly updates. The Region 2 finals will be held at the National Stock Exchange of India facilities in Mumbai on February 23, 2019; the Region 1 finals follow on March 2 at the Penn Wharton China Center in Beijing; and the Region 3 finals (the first year we’re holding them separately!) will be on March 16 at Wharton in Philadelphia. The top three teams from each will advance to our KWHS Investment Competition Global Finale, held on Friday and Saturday, May 3 and 4, at Wharton in Philadelphia.

On Saturday, May 5, 2018, more than 100 high school students, along with their families, advisors and mentors, traveled from around the world to Wharton’s Philadelphia campus to participate in the 2018 KWHS Investment Competition Global Finale.

They were all soon reminded of another journey, the one that brought them to that moment on the 8^th floor of Wharton’s Jon M. Huntsman Hall. Ten weeks of team trading, deliberating and strategizing, resulting in the submission of 300 final investment reports. Two regional finals in India and China, providing the top six teams from those countries the opportunity to travel to the Global Finale and compete against students from Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Malaysia, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States — 18 top teams, all prepared on May 5 to give the 10-minute presentations of their lives. They would go in front of a panel of six industry experts, several representing the day’s sponsors – Aberdeen Standard Investments, Dechert LLP, Dilworth Paxson LLP, Finclusive Capital, Principle Quest Foundation and UBS — in hopes of winning the title as the competition’s most savvy, reliable and creative asset-management team. The full lineup of Saturday’s competitors included:

• All You Can Eat Buffett, Virginia, United States
• ALPHA, Sevenoaks School, Sevenoaks, Kent, United Kingdom
• Brazilian Bulls, Colégio Santa Cruz, São Paulo, Brazil
• Charlottesville High School Student Investment Group, Charlottesville High School, Virginia, United States
• Dollar Tiger$, Germantown Friends School, Philadelphia, Pa., United States
• Longer-Term Capital Management, Monta Vista High School, Cupertino, Calif., United States
• Maple Eagle, York Mills Collegiate Institute, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Medici Capital, Lovejoy High School, Lucas, Texas, United States
• Oakridge Investment Enterprises, Oak Ridge High School, El Dorado, Calif., United States
• Pied Piper Investments, Amity International School, Noida, India
• Pine Stone Capital Management, Beijing RDFZ, The High School Affiliated to Renmin University, Beijing, China
• RDFZ ICC, Beijing RDFZ, The High School Affiliated to Renmin University, Beijing, China
• Saints Capital, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
• Scion Capital, Jayshree Periwal International School, Jaipur, India
• The Alchemy of Investments, Amity International School, Noida, India
• United World Capital, United World College RCN, Norway
• Vancity Capital Management, Canada
• War Wolves, Beijing Academy, Beijing, China

It was a journey with an inspirational destination. Following 18 thought-provoking team presentations, Saturday’s judging panel selected six top teams – three winners from the top 12 teams in Region 3 and three global winners from among the full scope of competitors. Regional winners received trophies and global winners received trophies and $5,000, $2,000 and $1,000 respectively for their schools from Dilworth Paxson law firm in Philadelphia. Here are the results:

• 1^st Place, Region 3: All You Can Eat Buffett
• 2^nd Place, Region 3: Medici Capital
• 3^rd Place, Region 3: ALPHA

• 1^st Place, Global: All You Can Eat Buffett
• 2^nd Place, Global: The Alchemy of Investments
• 3^rd Place, Global: Scion Capital

Algorithms, Analysis and Alchemy

Each PowerPoint or Prezi-supported presentation, delivered by four to nine students, communicated the group’s unique investment strategy, as well as summarizing its competition experience, takeaways and team dynamics. In the allotted time of 10 minutes to present and five minutes for questions from the judges, students articulated their tactics and tools, incorporating details about proprietary algorithms, top-down, bottom-up analyses, risk attenuation and yield capitalization, qualitative and quantitative approaches to stock selection, Porter’s Five Forces and SWOT evaluations, and more — all guided by a long-term, client-focused mindset.

The day’s winners were especially strong on content and creativity, punctuated by strategy pitches that dazzled the judges on a professional level.

Take, for instance, All You Can Eat Buffett, whose unique team investment strategy included a self-created machine learning-based natural language processing algorithm that used news outlet information to predict stock market trends. The team’s multi-layered presentation incorporated humor and even the results of a direct outreach to competition client Jack Abraham. The Alchemy of Investments delivered a sharp, enthusiastic and engaging presentation articulating with color and confidence its ALCHEMACRO model that reviewed economies using macro-level factors. Alchemy advisor Manvir Singh Rana, who has guided many top teams in the competition, including this year’s Pied Piper Investments, said that he is more than a teacher to his students, he is “an awakener.” Scion Capital communicated a strong client-first philosophy and brought in its team leader, Mohammad Darvish, at the end via video conference for a compelling Q&A with judges. Darvish, an Iranian citizen, was unable to secure a visa to travel to the U.S. for the competition finals.

This competition has been a great learning experience, indeed a roller coaster ride, reflected Jahnvi Vig, student team leader and chief investment officer for India’s The Alchemy of Investments. “It was the first of November when our trading journey began and we started to explore the world of finance, until the fourth of May, when we got to meet brilliant brains from all around the world and learned the skill of negotiation [from Wharton professor Maurice Schweitzer],” she explained. Vig was one of more than 100 students who also attended the KWHS Investment Competition Learning Day on Friday, May 4, for an afternoon of speakers sharing insights on business, University of Pennsylvania admissions, and careers in asset management. “We have come out to be a group of seven confident and engaging students who have the power to tackle all obstacles that come our way.”

While the teams’ exploration of new knowledge and financial concepts was, at times, challenging, it was nothing compared to the task laid out before the Global Finale judging panel – to select winners from among a passionate room filled with imposing young minds and hearts.

Following the presentations, the judges – including Saras Agarwal, chief journey owner at Vanguard; Iain Gillespie, corporate strategy manager for the Americas at Aberdeen Standard Investments; David Lawrence, founder of RANE and long-time managing director at Goldman Sachs; Mukund Rao, financial products architect at Wharton Research Data Services; John Squires, partner at Dilworth Paxson law firm; and Scott Stimpfel, a director at Citi who was instrumental in starting the KWHS Investment Competition in 2012 — offered a few thoughts on the day.

“In a world where divisiveness, tribalism and rancor seem to rule, today was very much a reminder of what holds us together, and that there is a common culture — a common desire for knowledge, information and teamwork,” said Lawrence, who urged students to always remain humble and to remember that there are no stop-gap measures in life, but only a genuine need to absorb the volatility in the stock market as well as in interpersonal relationships, and to learn from them both. “Each and every team that participated here in this room or remotely was exceptional. I can say that after being at Goldman Sachs for more than 20 years.”

Added Agarwal, a Wharton MBA: “I’m impressed by the thoughtfulness that you bring to what you’ve done here. Clearly there’s a lot of effort. As you think about your careers going forward, have the courage in your convictions. Be purposeful in what you’re doing and be confident as you make decisions.”

“Chris Demetriou, Aberdeen Standard Investments’ CEO who was speaking here this morning, came right over to me and assured me that my job was definitely under threat in the next year or two,” quipped Gillespie, alluding to the students’ talent and out-of-the-box thinking.

Tackling Financial Illiteracy

The importance of financial knowledge is a key message of the KWHS Investment Competition, as well as the broader Knowledge@Wharton High School initiative, which promotes business literacy and financial literacy globally among high school students and educators through content, competitions and seminars. Financial education and access emerged as a theme that shaped the tone of Saturday’s event.

Drawing comparisons to his firm’s work related to racial inequality and the landmark Brown v. Board of Education school segregation case, Squires suggested that financial illiteracy is the separate-but-not-equal and disparate impact that is befalling today’s global citizenry. “In the U.S. alone, 40 million people are underbanked or unbanked, and 2.5 to 3.5 billion people globally,” noted Squires, who began his career as chief IP counsel for Goldman Sachs and today is considered one of the world’s thought leaders in fintech, block chain, cybersecurity and risk. “As a firm and on behalf of one of our sponsors FinClusive, we are taking that to task, tackling financial illiteracy head-on and working with Knowledge@Wharton and KWHS to remove that as an issue. Financial access should be a basic human right. And with all the good works you’ve done here today, I think that you’ve experienced that. Be ambassadors for the knowledge that you’ve gained.”

Many investment competition teams have already started doing just that. Pied Piper Investments of Noida, India, for example, spreads financial literacy through its Piper Press newsletter, while neighboring team The Alchemy of Investments conducts community outreach on financial education through in-class visits and even a TED Talk on personal finance skills. Countless teams involved in the competition, both finalists and otherwise, have started investment clubs in their schools to develop their passion for investing and promote financial engagement and knowledge among their peers.

Sid Muralidhar, team leader of regional and global winning team All You Can Eat Buffett, counted a focus on financial literacy among his most valuable takeaways from his KWHS Investment Competition Global Finale experience. “We met and befriended some extremely talented students from across the world – from a team in our home state of Virginia, to a team in Norway, and teams in India and China – and were very proud to be amongst them as finalists,” noted Muralidhar, who is a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Great Falls. “We learned a lot from these teams, not just about different financial techniques and concepts, but also about being active participants in our community to further the goal of financial literacy. Hopefully, these connections and friendships will lead to some form of collaboration in the future to ensure that individuals can save, achieve their goals, and retire safely. We will continue to share information gleaned through our own research and experiences to others. In fact, we have already offered to help Wharton’s alumni outreach in Brazil take our experience to help students from Brazil participate in this competition – hopefully, they become the agents for change in their country.”

Muralidhar added that the KWHS Investment Competition was instrumental in teaching him the power of teamwork in a secondary-education world that often advocates individual success. “Each member of our team was assigned a specific role, but more importantly, we had to find ways to support one another and compromise when we had disagreements. Each member brought a unique perspective and skill set to the table. Today, students are under pressure to outperform their peers to be admitted to college, but this competition taught us that everyone that is a team player, and shares and learns, is a winner.”