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Wharton Global High School Investment Competition

Description:

The most credited investment competition available for highschoolers where students create an investment strategy for a client that manages their portfolio in a way that achieves their own financial goals. More than 2300 teams from 79 countries participated in the 2025-2026 competition. 

Overall rating: smt Credibility rating: smt

    • Teams are required to build a $500,000 virtual portfolio that consists of stocks, ETFs, and Treasury Bonds to fulfill a real client’s short and long term investment goals.

    • Yet, how much money this portfolio makes is not what the competition evaluates students on. Students are rather evaluated through the mid-term report and final report, justifying their process, storyline, strategy and learnings of this asset selection process.

    • Judges select 50 semifinalists to proceed to the semifinal and 10 finalists to compete at finals at the University of Pennsylvania where the top 3 are being selected. 

  • Each team needs to be made up of 4-7 members aged 14-18 years old from the same day school (home school students can compete upon proofs). Each team will have a team captain, who needs to be 16 years old before the competition begins. An advisor is required for this competition, and students must sign up under an advisor (please contact teachers at your school if you need one).

    • Monday, June 30: Registration opens

    • Friday, September 12: Advisor Registration closes

    • Thursday, September 18: Advisors set up student team accounts

    • Monday, September 29: First day of trading

    • Friday, October 10: All teams must fully execute one trade on WInS by the close of the U.S. markets (4:00 p.m. ET) in order to be eligible to advance to the Semifinals or Global Finale.

    • Friday, October 17: Official team rosters must be submitted via Reviewer (5:00 p.m. ET); no changes are permitted after this date.

    • Friday, October 31: Midterm report must be submitted via Reviewer (5:00 p.m. ET)

    • Friday, December 5: Last day of trading; close of the U.S. markets (4:00 p.m. ET)

    • Monday, December 8: Final report and school documentation must be submitted via Reviewr (5:00 p.m. ET)

    • Tuesday, January 27, 2026: Semifinalists (top 50 teams) announced

    • Week of March 9: Virtual Semifinals

    • April 24 & 25, 2026: Learning Day & Global Finale at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

    2026-2027 timeline unavailable so this is from 2025-2026, just to give you a brief idea

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Other information:

    • The number of industries of stock each team invests in in their final portfolio needs to be equal or greater than the amount of team members each team has. 

    • Teams may make up to 200 trades; each buy/sell counts as one trade.

    • Commissions: $25 per stock trade, $10 per treasury bond (charged only when a trade clears).

    • Approved security include: Cash, Any stock priced at $5+ on any exchange, ETFs from the Approved ETF List (must include at least one ETF in your portfolio), Treasury bonds from the Approved Treasury List (optional)

Official website: click here

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Young man in a business suit receiving an award from a man with glasses at a high school investment competition. Several other young men in suits are standing nearby, smiling, with a presentation screen in the background.
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