This winter, juniors Andy Wang, Ethan Yang, Ethan Jin, Philip Han, Eric Huang, William Hu, and Lue Fang took on Wharton School’s Global High School Investment Competition for the third year in a row. This 10-week investment competition gives participants the experience of managing a virtual financial portfolio and developing investment strategies. Teams are assigned to a “client” with specific financial goals and are challenged to create an investment plan to fulfill their goals — short- and long-term. They had to prepare a midterm report that showed teams’ interests in the competition and then a final report on their overall investment strategy. The investment strategy was equally as important as the investments themselves. 

This competition emphasizes the importance of creativity, innovation and thinking outside the box; stemming from a shared interest in volleyball with their client, “Ace Analysts” developed an approach called “Bump, Spike, Set.” This team valued having a diversity of skill sets- communicative, creative, and technical- which they partially attributed to their success. They met frequently in the beginning to come up with an initial strategy and then weekly for planning. Not everyone on the team had technical knowledge or investment experience before the competition, but their diverse skill sets helped them to succeed in different aspects of the competition. This team valued a variety of attributes from communication to creativity to more technical skills.

After passing the semifinals round consisting of a 10-minute “pitch” aimed at their client, Team “Ace Analysts”  were selected out of 4,000 total teams to make it to the finals. This team said they have gained experience each year of participating in this competition and enjoy working together as a team.