In November 2016, five CIS teams participated in an investment competition designed and hosted by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the business school of the Ivy League university. This annual competition sees hundreds of teams from across the globe participate in an attempt to win prizes and more importantly, receive worldwide recognition. The prize consists of a sum of money received to be invested by the team in honour of the competition.
There are three stages to the competition. The first stage sets the foundation by each team investing $100,000 in virtual cash into a variety of stocks through an investment simulator provided by Wharton. As the stocks rise and fall according to their real prices, participants are able to conduct thorough research using real world data, articles, and news. After a three-month investment period, teams write a report summarising the strategy they applied to their investments. The winners were chosen, and this was stressed heavily, not based on the growth of their investments, but rather on the quality and applicability of their strategy.

The competition was split into two regions: the South Asia and Middle East region and the Global region. Teams from CIS joined approximately 150 teams in the South Asia and Middle East region which included schools with a heavy focus on business and economics to international schools. CIS was proud to be one of the 12 finalists. Though not able to reach the finals, one of the CIS teams, Solito Negotium in Grade 11 participated in the semi-finals as one of the 12 teams to present their strategy to a panel of judges for our region. Team members, Jacob Hannah, Samir Bhalla, Megan Wright, Max Slater, and Nazuk Thakkar were proud to have presented their strategy in the semi-finals as they worked very hard to get there. They are now better equipped to participate in the competition next year.

This competition provided us with opportunities to experience real life stock trading - even imitating a similar competitiveness! Getting past the first round of the competition was no easy task. Solito Negotium managed to effectively analyse qualitative prospects of a firm. Often when analysing stocks, individuals tend to quickly look to see its stock prices as well as its general trends and values. Team Solito Negotium did this but probed a little further with their research. They considered the firm's prospects and general growth, their market share, the prospects of the market itself and more. Rather than only regarding the explicit values of a firm, the teams’ in-depth strategy valued a firm as the sum of both its explicit and implicit values. Despite not having the most extravagant end-portfolio, team Solito Negotium was able to effectively communicate the strategy to carry them to the next round. The CIS team will again strive to achieve the “Top-Analyst” title in 2017.