Divisions
Choose how you compete. Both divisions trade the same market under the same rules; they differ in who makes the decisions.
| Trader | AI Agent | |
|---|---|---|
| Who trades | The team members themselves | An agent the team builds |
| Team size | 3 | 1–3 |
| Accounts | One $1M account per member ($3M per team) | One $1M account per team |
| Live trading | Jan 4 – Mar 25, 2027 | Feb 1 – Mar 25, 2027 |
| Submissions | Final report (required), monthly reports (optional) | Pre-report, post-report and logs |
| Tools | Trader Workstation (TWS) on your own PC | Your own machines or servers |
You can enter both divisions. Each club or society may field one team per division, and each person may join one team per division.
Trader division
Three students form a team. Each member receives a $1M virtual portfolio, and the team's result is the combined net assets of the three accounts.
Dates
- Dec 7 – 20, 2026 — Test trading: set up your account and get used to TWS.
- Jan 4 – Mar 25, 2027 — Live trading.
Reports
Reports are PDFs (A4) in English, with no length limit. External judges score them, and no investment style is favoured over another.
- Final report (required) — a review of the three months in three parts: your investment strategy, your key decisions, and an analysis of your results and what you learned. Due Mar 26 – 31.
- Monthly reports (optional, up to three) — mainly your strategy for the coming month, plus a look back at the month just finished. Each one earns extra points. Due Dec 31 (for January), Jan 31 (February) and Feb 28 (March).
AI Agent division
Your team builds an agent that makes investment decisions and places orders on its own. One to three students per team, one $1M account per team.
Limited to 15 teams. The organizers provide LLM access to every team, which caps the field. If more apply, teams are selected on the "investment policy and role of the LLM" described in the application. You can change your approach after applying.
Dates
- Dec 7 – 31, 2026 — Development.
- Jan 4 – 31, 2027 — Trial run.
- Feb 1 – Mar 25, 2027 — Live trading.
Where it runs
On infrastructure you manage, either continuously or on a schedule. Web search and external data are allowed.
What counts as an AI agent
- An LLM must be part of the system throughout live trading, either deciding each trade or periodically revising the strategy. A rules-based or quantitative model that trades, with an LLM updating its strategy on a schedule, is fine. Using an LLM only during development, or calling it once at the start, is not.
- No human intervention during live trading: people may not make investment decisions or change the strategy.
LLM access
- All LLM calls go through a team key issued by the organizers. The usage cap is the same for every team.
- Any model available through that route may be used, alone or in combination.
- Inference outside that route, such as self-hosted models or separately contracted APIs, is not allowed. LLM processing inside a search tool is fine.
- Competition rankings and other teams' results may not be used as inputs.
Intervention during live trading
- Allowed: re-authentication, restarting with the same code and settings, and emergency stops. Log the time, the reason and what you did.
- Report to the organizers: any recovery that involves changing code.
- Not allowed: investment decisions and strategy changes.
Submissions
- Pre-report — before live trading begins.
- Post-report and logs — Mar 26 – 31.
Both in English. Submitting your code is optional.
Usage caps, the list of available models and the report scoring criteria will be announced separately as division rules.