We Have Our Winners!

It has been a very interesting ride these past 9 weeks, and our UCU Investment Challenge III has now come to a conclusion.

Lots went on during these past several weeks - with Europe struggling to resolve the financial crisis gripping Greece and other its southern countries, the US Presidential elections came and went, corporate 3rd quarter earnings results were released and US fiscal cliff discussions ensued.  All of this and our own Trading Day had its impact on the portfolios our contestants were managing.

We are extremely pleased with the developments throughout the contest, as many portfolios moved in and out of prize position, although one portfolio benefitted from a very shrew stock pick at the very start, and followed up with a conservative trade to lock in gains and maintain the lead.  Here, George F. was able to deliver a very impressive 132%+ gain over the 9 week period, which was driven by a highly weighted position in Groundstar Resources (at 80% of his portfolio), which was followed up by a switch out of stocks and into bond ETFs and cash to preserve the gains.  To George goes our 1st Prize, $1,000 into an investment account with Credential Securities.  Congratulations George!

2nd Prize, $750 into an investment account with Credential Securities goes to Peter Tr., who just edged out our 3rd place finisher.  Peter's portfolio delivered a very impressive 39% return over 9 weeks.  Peter made some very good trades on Trading Day, where his portfolio was doing well in the first 4 weeks, but by picking up Research in Motion, Peter was able to crank up the beta in his portfolio.  His original Galway Resources position held on to solid early gains.  Congratulations Peter!

Our 3rd Prize goes to Andrew R., whose portfolio delivered a 36% return over the course of the challenge.  Andrew's portfolio was concentrated in 3 positions, which he held throughout the contest, not taking advantage of the opportunity to trade.  Positions in Air Canada and Research in Motion provided the driving force for his portfolio.  Well done Andrew!

We were very impressed with all the portfolios, as the majority generated positive returns over the course of the challenge and 25% delivered double digit returns.  Honourable mentions go out to:

Oleh F., whose solid 5 stock portfolio returned almost 29% (Green Mountain Coffee and InterMune led the way);
Ihor D., whose equal weighted 5 stock portfolio delivered just under 20% (with RIM providing the bulk of the alpha);
Roman B.'s portfolio returned over 15% (Rifco and Pilot Gold leading his equal weighted 4 stock portfolio);
Shahan B.'s portfolio divered over 14.5% return (again, equal weighted 5 position portfolio driven by RIM);
Thomas W.'s portfolio delivered 14% return (Thomas was active on Trading Day, moving from a 5 position equal weighted portfolio to a heavily skewed portfolio, switching out of all original positions into a 3 position portfolio), and;
Volodymyr T.'s portfolio that returned over 13% (5 ETF positions, equal weighted led by two leveraged gold bear ETFs). 

To round out the top 10, Nestor S.'s portfolio delivered a 9% return (RIM driving the results in a 5 position equal weighted portfolio).

With that we wrap up our UCU Investment Challenge III.  We certainly enjoy running these contests and we hope that those that participated also had a lot of fun with it.

We look forward to running it again next year, so stay tuned for future announcements!