YSIC 2024 Details

Competition Overview

The Youth Sustainability Investment Challenge (YSIC), hosted by the Youth Entrepreneurship and Finance Association (YEFA) and sponsored by Global Alliance, is an ESG-centered portfolio management competition. In YSIC, students will have the opportunity to think creatively, build their own unique strategies, and test out various financial instruments individually or with a team up to 3 members (Team Size: 1-3 members). Each student/team will start out with $1,000,000 in cash and have roughly 3 months to construct an ESG-oriented portfolio.

Any stock and bond listed on a YSIC-approved stock exchange or bond exchange will be allowed for trading during the competition. Finalists (top 10 global students/teams) will have the opportunity to pitch their investment strategy to a panel of distinguished Wall Street judges, compete in New York City for a $10,000 cash prize pool, and attend a unique networking event in NYC with industry-leading professionals.

Sustainability: ESG Strategy

Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) is an approach of assessing the extent to which a company is working on behalf of social objectives that go beyond its role to maximize profits on behalf of its shareholders. ESG analysis has become an increasingly important part of the investment process. A key motivation for investment professionals to incorporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues into their financial analysis is to gain a fuller understanding of the companies in which they invest.

In the Youth Sustainability Investment Challenge (YSIC™), we ask participants to incorporate ESG-related principles into their overall investment strategies & investment decisions-making processes. Participants may implement different approaches in integrating ESG analysis into their investment processes. Further ESG-related educational study materials / webinars will be provided by YEFA.

Trading Hours

Here are the trading times for some of the largest global stock exchanges. (All times represent regular trading hours, Monday-Friday, and are listed in Eastern time.)

• New York Stock Exchange (NYSE): 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m
• Nasdaq Stock Market (NASDAQ): 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m
• Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX): 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m
• Mexico Stock Exchange (BMV): 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m
• London Stock Exchange (LSE): 3 a.m. to 11:30 a.m
• Euronext Paris (EPA): 3 a.m. to 11:30 a.m
• Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FRA): 3 a.m. to 11 a.m
• Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE): 8 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., 11:30 p.m. to 2 a.m
• Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE): 9:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., 1 a.m. to 3 a.m
• Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE): 9:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., 1 a.m. to 3 a.m
• Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKG): 9:30 p.m. to 12 a.m., 1 a.m. to 4 a.m

Trading Rules

• Trading 9/19/2022 - 12/9/2022
• Each account will start out with $1,000,000 in virtual cash
• All Stocks must be greater than $3, International stocks are allowed
• Stocks and Bonds are allowed to buy and sell
• ETF, short selling, margin trading, Cryptocurrencies, and other options are not allowed
• The maximum amount a student can invest in single security (either a stock or bond) is 10%. (Example: the maximum you can invest in AAPL is 10% of your entire portfolio)
• Each account must make a minimum of 1 trade by 11:59 pm EST on 09/30/2022. Otherwise, you will be disqualified
• Your cash position cannot be greater than 50% at the midterm. Ex: if you buy 10% for each stock, the minimum number of stocks is 5
• Record each transaction
• To enter the quarterfinals and semifinals, you need to show that at least one ESG-friendly stock in your portfolio
• There is no brokerage fee for this competition
• There is no interest income on cash balances
• ESG Requirements TBD