2026 Hong Kong Quantitative Trading Competition Rules

The 2026 Hong Kong Quantitative Trading Competition is initiated and hosted by FUND CONNECT HK, with HKU Web3 Institute as co-organiser, and combines online and offline participation in Hong Kong, China. Results, rankings and competition data are displayed on FundConnectHK. Interactive Brokers (IBKR) is currently supported; any later brokers, connection methods and changes follow the latest official announcement.

Teams must follow the supported broker's rules for account opening, identity checks, trading permissions, data access and paper-funding settings, and confirm that their account meets the competition and their own trading needs. The team bears responsibility if an incomplete account, insufficient permissions, data-access problems, incorrect paper funding or another broker-account issue prevents participation or trading or affects results.

The competition is open to university students, research teams, individual researchers, professional quant teams, fintech teams and others with trading-strategy or system-development capabilities. A team of 1-5 members is recommended and must appoint a captain. The competition account must be opened and lawfully held by a verified team member. Each team may enter one strategy through one platform account and one independent official competition account. Multiple strategies must be entered and accounted for together as a mixed strategy.

The competition has paper and live divisions. USD 1,000,000 in initial paper funding is recommended, with the confirmed post-testing NAV used as the formal starting value. Live accounts should have at least USD 50,000 initial NAV in principle, and teams bear actual trading profit and loss. Live teams must place a test order; new accounts may also be asked to test. Categories are Market Neutral / Relative Value, Systematic Directional, Long-Only / Index Enhancement and Mixed / Other. The committee may confirm or adjust a category based on actual trading, positions and primary risk exposure.

All times in this section are Hong Kong Time (HKT), subject to formal notice. Registration opens on 1 August 2026 at 00:00, and all teams must register by 23 October at 23:59. Teams needing a new broker account should start early and complete account opening, data authorisation, platform connection and pre-competition checks before formal trading begins. The preparation period ends on 25 October at 23:59.

Registration materials include team and contact details, member identity information, CVs for the captain and participating members, a strategy document, and broker-account connection and authorisation details for data verification. Materials may be supplemented after initial registration but must be complete before formal trading begins as required by the Organiser. Qualification reviews run on a rolling basis, and further information or checks may be requested.

Under the schedule, formal trading runs from 26 October 2026 at 00:00 to 27 January 2027 at 06:00, subject to the Organiser's formal notice. The platform reads only the minimum data needed, including NAV and cash, trades, deposits and withdrawals, and other scoring data. IBKR teams must configure an Activity Flex Query and provide a valid Flex Web Service Token and Query ID, including all sub-items under Trades, Cash Transactions and Net Asset Value (NAV) Summary in Base. Access is read-only for data and scoring, does not require the IBKR login password and cannot place orders or transfer funds.

Presentations are planned for February 2027, with representatives from the top five eligible teams by trading-stage score in each division. Awards are also expected in February 2027. Exact dates, formats, venue and participation arrangements will be announced by the Organiser. After the competition, teams must submit a post-competition report covering the strategy, model development and optimisation, and risk controls as requested.

Teams may in principle trade financial products and markets offered by current and later supported brokers, subject to the account's actual permissions and broker rules. Quantitative methods must be central to the strategy. External data, open-source tools and third-party services must be lawfully sourced, clearly licensed and explainable to the judges.

Each team is limited to one platform account, and each participant may join only one team in the same competition. The same beneficial controller, team or related persons may not register, control or use multiple accounts. Multi-account position splitting, profit/loss splitting, reverse hedging, structured leaderboard manipulation, lending, sharing, proxy trading and managed competition accounts are prohibited. The Organiser may investigate related accounts and adjust results or enforce penalties for coordinated trading or concealed relationships.

During the competition, live-division teams must apply to the Organiser and obtain confirmation before making deposits, withdrawals or other external fund transfers.

To reduce abnormal returns caused by low liquidity or paper-trading mechanics, the competition may block new positions, increase simulated slippage, exclude abnormal performance or apply other controls to low-priced, low-turnover, newly listed or long-inactive instruments. Stocks below USD 1.0 and stocks with 30-day average daily turnover below USD 3,000,000 may generally only be closed. Long-inactive or extremely illiquid options and deferred futures may not be used to manufacture abnormal returns.

A team must satisfy either: (1) average daily exposure of at least 50% during the competition, with no more than 10 cumulative cash-only trading days; intraday trading closed before the market close is not a cash-only day; or (2) average daily turnover of at least 100%. A team meeting neither condition may continue and display results but cannot enter the presentation or award candidate lists. Presentation places pass to eligible teams in trading-stage composite-score order.

The Organiser may review and retain competition data and determine results, rankings and compliance status. It may investigate and adjust abnormal performance. Cheating, falsified materials or other serious misconduct may lead to cancellation of results, eligibility, award rights and follow-up cooperation candidacy, including after a post-competition review.

The trading-stage composite score is 100 points: Return Performance 25% (primarily cumulative net return), Risk-Adjusted Return 35% (primarily Sharpe ratio), Maximum Drawdown Control 25% (drawdown depth and recovery), and Strategy Stability 15% (positive-return period ratio, return volatility and persistence). Metrics are generally standardized to 0-100 within the same strategy category and then weighted.

Trading-stage composite score = Return Performance × 25% + Risk-Adjusted Return × 35% + Maximum Drawdown × 25% + Strategy Stability × 15%. The presentation is 100 points: Strategy Logic 40, Risk Management 40, and Presentation and Q&A 20.

Final score = trading-stage composite score × 70% + presentation score × 30%. If final scores tie, the higher trading-stage Risk-Adjusted Return score ranks first; if still tied, the higher Maximum Drawdown Control score ranks first. Teams entering the presentation or follow-up cooperation process may be asked for additional strategy and risk-control materials.

Paper and live divisions are awarded separately. The top five eligible teams by trading-stage composite score in each division advance to the final presentation, with places passing down the ranking when a team is ineligible, after which champion, runner-up and third place are determined by final score. Strategy-category awards are Best Market Neutral, Best Systematic Directional and Best Long-Only / Index Enhancement Strategy. The winning strategy must beat the corresponding 90-Day Average SOFR and rank first by trading-stage composite score in its category within its division. Each category award has one winner in each of the live and paper divisions in principle and may be left vacant if requirements are not met.

Each of the live and paper divisions has one Best Return Award, based on cumulative net return, and one Best Sharpe Award, based on the annualised Sharpe ratio calculated from daily net returns over the full competition. The AIVIX Alternative Data Application Award has eight recipients in total across both divisions. Eligible strategies must apply for and use AIVIX alternative data through the FundConnectHK Team portal and explain its use and actual contribution; eligible entries with application records are ranked by trading-stage composite score. Allocation between the live and paper divisions follows the final platform announcement. First prize (one team) receives 12 months of AIVIX Professional, second prize (two teams) six months each, and third prize (five teams) three months each. Any additions or changes to performance awards will be announced through official competition channels.

The top three in each division, strategy-category and performance-award winners, and other high-potential teams may enter the follow-up cooperation pool. The competition plans to explore potential cooperation with a total AUM ceiling of HKD 100 million, with about 90% intended for live-division candidates and 10% for paper-division candidates in principle, but not mechanically allocated by rank or award. Actual allocations depend on each team’s circumstances, due-diligence results and cooperation conditions. Winning or entering the pool does not automatically confer funding. Cooperation depends on continuing performance, strategy stability and explainability, risk controls, account and operating conditions, and completion of due diligence, compliance review and agreements.

Teams retain intellectual property rights in their strategies, code, documents and related materials. All entries must be original and plagiarism is prohibited. External data, open-source tools and third-party services must be lawfully sourced and clearly licensed.

Teams may request competition technical support, platform guidance, API connection guidance, community Q&A and industry-mentor exchanges. Teams remain responsible for strategy research, coding, testing, trade execution and risk management, and may not use unregistered or unauthorised external persons to develop, trade or submit materials on their behalf.

The Organiser has final authority to interpret the competition. Based on the rules, competition data and relevant evidence, it may decide eligibility, misconduct, result verification, rankings, awards and other competition matters. Supplements or amendments follow the latest announcement issued through official channels.