2026 Hong Kong Quantitative Trading Competition Rules

The 2026 Hong Kong Quantitative Trading Competition is initiated and hosted by FUND CONNECT HK, with the University of Hong Kong Web3 Research 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) and other brokers are currently supported; actual availability, connection methods and subsequent changes follow the latest official announcement.

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. Paper accounts start with USD 1,000,000 in principle, 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. Both divisions may be required to place a test order. 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) and provisional, subject to formal notice. Registration opens on 1 August 2026 at 00:00. Teams with an eligible supported-broker account must register by 18 September at 23:59. Teams needing a new account must register by 14 September at 23:59 and complete account opening and related procedures by 23 September at 23:59. All teams must connect their supported-broker account to the platform by 25 September at 23:59.

Registration materials include team and contact information, member identity materials and a strategy presentation or brief. The strategy document may be deferred during registration but must be completed before formal trading. Qualification review and interviews run on a rolling basis, and the Organiser may request supplements or further verification. Pre-competition preparation begins after registration and ends on 27 September at 23:59; teams must complete data access, platform connection and required tests.

Under the provisional schedule, formal trading runs from 28 September 2026 at 00:00 to 29 December at 06:00, subject to the Organiser's formal notice. The platform reads only the minimum data needed, including NAV and cash, positions, 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 take place from 1-15 January 2027, and the top five teams by trading-stage composite score in each division must participate. Awards take place from 18-22 January, with the exact date, venue and participation method notified separately. 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.

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 is ineligible for awards.

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 trading-stage teams in each division advance to the final presentation, 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 final composite score in its category. Each award has one winner in principle and may be left vacant if requirements are not met.

Performance awards are: one Best Return Award, ranked by cumulative net return; one Best Sharpe Award, ranked by the annualised Sharpe ratio calculated from daily net returns over the full competition; and one AIVIX Alternative Data Application Award, requiring actual use of alternative data and an explanation of its source, use and contribution, determined by composite performance.

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 involving about HKD 100 million in AUM, with about 90% intended for live-division candidates and 10% for paper-division candidates in principle, but not mechanically allocated by rank or award. 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.