THE BIGGEST STOCK MARKET COMPETITION IN THE PHILIPPINES IS BACK!
Presenting the Investagrams Trading Cup 2021:
READY. SET. TRADE.
This competition is OPEN TO ALL and will run for three months from November 8, 2021 to January 28, 2022.
1. Registration. Anyone can still join the competition before the official competition begins (Monday, November 8, 2021). For those who will be joining late, you are still allowed to participate until Sunday, November 21, 2021. Don’t worry, you will receive a notification once you have been automatically added to the Competition Room and the Trading Cup is about to begin. Click here to join the competition.
Important notes:
– Verification of ID is required to join the competition room and the exclusive InvestaGroup for participants. Please submit your ID here.
– Only one (1) entry and account per person is allowed.
– If you have more than 1 account to join the competition, all accounts will be immediately DISQUALIFIED.
– You can change your Display Name, Username, and Profile Picture until THE DAY BEFORE the competition starts. Once the Trading Cup begins, the system will not allow you to change the above-mentioned anymore.
– You can change Guilds until THE DAY BEFORE the competition starts. Once the Trading Cup begins, the system will not allow you to change Guilds anymore.
2. Platform. The participants of Trading Cup 2021: Ready Set Trade will use the Virtual Trading Platform of Investagrams which tracks the real-time stock price movements in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE). The system automatically calculates transaction fees to make it more realistic.
To know more about Investa vTrade, click here.
You can access the platform through the web, or download the app on Google Play or App Store.
3. Goal. For this year’s Trading Cup, you have two goals:
- Goal #1 is simple — trade your account for the whole competition period and aim for the highest profits. The participants with the highest rankings while playing within the rules will be recognized as winners.
- Goal #2 is to represent your guild by making the Top 20 to receive special points to help your Guild win an extra PHP 100,000 on top of the overall prizes.
4. Starting Capital. Each participant will start with PHP 1,000,000.00 virtual money to trade.
5. Trading Hours. Weekdays from 9:30AM – 1:00PM. This is the current PH trading hours and will be changed once the pandemic quarantine is lifted. Meaning, you can’t trade during off-hours and on weekends.
6. Tradable Stocks. Participants can only trade the listed tradable stocks for this competition. The tradable stocks are filtered by our system and qualify as liquid and actively traded stocks. You will be able to access the whole stock list once you are added to the Competition Room. The initial tradable stocks list will be posted over the weekend before the competition begins.
Penny Stocks will NOT be included in the list of tradable stocks due to their susceptibility to rinse and repeat abuses. Stocks that have become come from PHP 1 levels and close at .99 or lower by the end of the week will be taken out of the list. This is to avoid any rinse and repeat abuses and deductions/disqualifications.
7. Diversification. To promote diversification and risk management, maximum exposure in a single stock can only be 1/3 or 33.33% of the portfolio. This requires the participants to buy at least 3 different stocks should they want to fully invest in their portfolio. The system won’t allow you to allocate more than 33.33% in a single stock.
8. Guilds. For the first time in Trading Cup history, we have now really made it possible for you to REPRESENT YOUR GUILD. Since this is a new feature, we wrote an entire article on it and its implications to the Trading Cup. Read it here: Our Newest Innovation: Investa Guild
9. Buying and Selling Conditions (For LONG positions). Participants now have two options when transacting. The first option is to transact using the current price of the stock and use market orders to buy and sell specific stocks at their real-time prices. The second option is to transact using our CONDITIONAL ORDERS. By using Conditional Orders, you won’t need to watch the market the whole day in order to transact in the market, you can now set AUTO CUT LOSS, AUTO TAKE PROFIT, and AUTO BUY ON BREAKOUT. You can also set these orders to GOOD TILL CANCELLED so that your order will remain active until your buy/sell price is hit. Watch this tutorial.
Buy – You can buy the same stock multiple times within a day.
Sell – YOU CAN SELL THE SAME STOCK SIX (6) TIMES PER DAY.
In one stock per day you can sell TWO TIMES (2) at a PROFIT.
In one stock per day you can sell FOUR TIMES (4) at a LOSS. (cutloss)
10. Buying and Selling Conditions (For SHORT positions). SHORTING is now available for this competition. The same thing applies if you want to short a stock, you can transact using the current price or set conditional orders if you can’t keep an eye on the market. We understand that many may not know the concept of shorting which is why we created a video tutorial you can watch here: LINK TO VIDEO
- Sell – You can open a short position on the same stock multiple times within a day.
- Buy – YOU CAN COVER YOUR SHORT POSITION ON THE SAME STOCK SIX (6) TIMES PER DAY.In one stock per day you can cover your short position TWO TIMES (2) at a PROFIT.
In one stock per day you can cover your short position FOUR TIMES (4) at a LOSS. (cutloss) - FEES / COMMISSIONS: Same as long positions.
COMPUTATION OF PROFITS: (Sell price – cover price)*shares – fees
For those who are not familiar on how to trade SHORT POSITIONS, here’s a STEP-BY-STEP guide to short selling stocks for this competition:
1. Choose your position from the market order type (long or short).
2. Upon choosing the short position, input the initial number of shares you want to sell.
Note: To short a stock, you have to SELL it first. Then to cover your position, you will need to BUY the shares back. To learn more please watch the tutorial: LINK
3. For closing the short position, select the short option in the market order type and input the number of shares you want to buy to close your short position.
11. Holding period for all stocks (For both LONG and SHORT positions).
- We will be applying the twenty (20) minute time lock for taking profits to ALL STOCKS to avoid widespread and rinse-repeat trades.
- There will be no time lock or restrictions when selling at a loss.
12. Revision of Tradable Stocks. Investagrams has the right to remove any stock from the list should it suddenly become too illiquid, abusable and/or delisted. Furthermore, Investagrams may also add new stocks on the tradable list as new stocks become more active and tradable in the market. All changes will be announced before implementation.
In such cases that a stock is to be removed, we will follow this process:
- Investagrams shall notify all the participants via the Investagrams Platform before the market opens.
- If you still have the stock in your portfolio, you can sell it at any point in time at your discretion.
13. Initial Public Offering (IPO). All upcoming IPOs that will happen while the Investagrams Trading Cup 2021 is on-going will be added on its SECOND (2nd) trading day.
14. On Dividends that will be given during the Trading Cup 2021.
- Stock Dividends that will be released by a company will be credited at the MORNING BEFORE THE MARKETS OPENS of the ex-date. Please note that stock dividends will cause price adjustments, so be aware if a stock you’re holding will release stock dividends.
- Cash Dividends that will be released by a company will NOT be credited to your total equity as the current system is still not able to credit cash divs.
15. On SRO that may happen during the Trading Cup 2021.
Stock Rights Offerings (or SRO) is offered to existing shareholders of a specific stock to purchase additional shares at a price lower than the current market price in addition to their current shares at hand.
SRO’s can be deemed good for longer-term investors. However, in the short term, may POTENTIALLY lead to a possible decline or gap down in the stock. So it’s important to always be aware of this.
Participants in the Trading Cup 2021 will not have an option to purchase additional shares from the SRO.
16. For stocks that will be detected by our WIDE-SPREAD DETECTION SYSTEM (WSDS). The Wide-Spread Detection System’s main condition is that the first (1st) best bid and ask should never be more than 2% at any moment during open market session.
Fig 1. Real-time Market Depth / Orderbook showing the first (1st) best bid-ask data.
Example: $ATN (Refer to Fig. 1)
Given:
1st best bid = 1.11
1st best ask = 1.14
Formula:
X = (1st best ask – 1st best bid) / 1st best bid
Condition:
If X is greater than 2% then WSDS detects that the stock is wide-spread and can be abused.
Solution:
X = (1.14 – 1.11) / 1.11 = 0.02700 x 100% = 2.70%
Verdict:
Since X is greater than 2% then the stock is wide-spread as computed by the system.
- The participant will be given a prompt that the detected stock is not tradable upon executing a buy or sell transaction.
- The stock will again be tradable once the system detects that the spread of the 1st best bids/asks are below 2%.
17. On Trading Abuses.
- Day trading opportunities on natural market moves are normal, but please take note that Investagrams will be on full-guard against participants that abuse illiquid opportunities. We want our winners to show real trading skills that are applicable in the PSE. Abuse of intraday spread trades will NOT BE TOLERATED. These rules are set to protect against the usual ‘rinse-and-repeat’ abuses that are mostly used in virtual trading competitions like this.
- Read more about ‘rinse-and-repeat trading abuse’ here and why this is not characteristic of a realistic trading strategy.
- Any participants that has more than 10% of their profits from rinse-and-repeat wide spread, illiquid and other abusive trades will be penalized or DISQUALIFIED depending on the severity of their offenses. We will be able to validate this through our data and algorithms that verify the historical transactions of each participant.
- Any form of hacks, cheats, and abuses shall not be tolerated and will have corresponding repercussions. Suspicious behavior that may not be specified in the rules may also be flagged as ‘abusive’ trading behavior. Warning shall be sent after Investagrams has reviewed and confirmed that the actions are against the integrity of the competition. All trade records shall be verified and those who fail to follow the rules will be disqualified.
- Participants will only be given ONE (1) warning, any participant who has constantly repeated any abusive trading behaviors (whether illiquid stocks, system abuses, loophole abuses) will instantly be DISQUALIFIED. Investagrams has the right to review any suspicious activity, and if the behavior is deemed inconsistent with real life trading then the said participant shall be disqualified.
- Questionable Transactions. Questionable transactions will be cross-checked through the buy and sell transaction time and the traded stock. Stocks that have more than 2% consistent gaps in the one (1) minute timeframe within the transaction period shall be deemed invalid and Investagrams has the right to deduct the profits from the said transactions. It is normal to trade natural intraday moves and gaps can really happen, but if a participant is constantly trading stocks that have gaps within one (1) minute timeframe and their profits from these kinds of scenarios make up more than 10% of their total profits, then he/she will be automatically disqualified.
Fig 2. Example 1 for one (1) minute time frame gaps with buy (green arrow) and sell (red arrow) transactions
Fig 3. Example 2 for one (1) min. time frame abusable 2% gaps
Fig 4. Example 3 for one (1) min. time frame abusable 2% gaps
Investagrams will warn the participant that is proven to be constantly transacting with illiquid stocks with 2% one (1) minute gaps. Basically, any stock that has 2% spreads and do not really have a trend is included in this definition. After the first warning, any participant that is proven to repeat this kind of behavior shall be disqualified.
18. Trading halt. Stocks that are on a trading halt will not be tradable during the halt and will be tradable again during the announced lifting time.
19. Participant rankings. This is constantly updated every 10-minutes and automatically ranked by Investagrams system according to net profit gain/loss.
20. Deliberation period and the announcement of winners. At the end of the competition, at least one (1) week deliberation period shall be given to Investagrams’ team of moderators to verify trades and the confirmation of winners. The participants with the highest net profits will win. The resulting Top 1 to 100 participants after deliberation will be announced as the official winners.
21. Top 10 Winners. Those who make it to the Top 10 will be REQUIRED to do a defense of their trading strategies used during the competition. This is basically a presentation where you will share your biggest winners, losses, and learnings during the Trading Cup. This has been the tradition of the Trading Cup for the past three years where the winners will share with the community how they made it to the top.
NO DEFENSE = NO CASH PRIZE.
PHP10,000 worth of the cash prizes for the Top 10 will be coming from RCBC Securities. The Top 10 would need to open an account with RCBC Securities and the prize will be credit to the account. The PHP10,000 is withdrawable. The Top 10 will have until June 30, 2022 to open an account, otherwise the cash prize from RCBC will be forfeited.
The remainder of the cash prizes for the Top 10 after deducting the 10k from RCBC will come from Investa to be deposited to the Top 10’s bank accounts.
22. Prize Pool. In the event that there is a winner from the Top 100 that is not registered using a Double Up Pass, the pot prize associated with his/her ranking will not be distributed to the other winners. To see further details and full list of prizes, please see the landing page.
23. Prize Pool Breakdown.
TOTAL WORTH OF PRIZES — PHP1,040,205
Breakdown:
CASH PRIZES FOR TOP 50 — PHP439,000
GUILD POTENTIAL MAX PRIZE — PHP100,000
LIFETIME ELITE FOR TOP 3 — PHP300,000
BONUS PRIZEPOOL — PHP201,205
TOTAL = PHP1,040,205
24. Unexpected events. In the case of an unexpected event that interrupts the operations of PSE or the system of Investagrams, the competition shall be frozen and paused. Further notice shall be given and trading will resume once everything is back to normal.
25. Modification and adding of rules. Investagrams has the right to modify the rules of the competition and add protective measures against any future abuses that may arise to ensure the integrity of the Investagrams Trading Cup 2021: Ready Set Trade Announcements shall be made if there are any changes. Rest assured, we prioritize keeping the competition as FAIR as possible to all participants.
26. Ignorance of the rules is no excuse. All participants are expected to have read and understood the rules and mechanics of Investagrams Trading Cup 2021: Ready Set Trade. These are published for the participants’ information and protection. Ignorance of these rules and mechanics is not an acceptable excuse for violation.
27. If you are part of the Top 50 winners, the FINAL DEADLINE to claim your cash prize is on MARCH 31, 2022. The cash prize will not be given anymore past this date.
28. Sponsors. Apple is not involved in any way in this competition. The sponsor(s) is/are solely responsible for providing the prize(s) listed herein. The prize(s) won are not apple products, nor are they related to apple in any way. The responsibility of organizing this competition and distributing the prize(s) are the sponsors’ responsibilities. Apple does not sponsor this competition in any way.
29. Prizes from Partners. Some of our partners will be giving out prizes (in cash or in kind) which may be distributed on a different timeline or date depending on the partner. But rest assured that we will make sure that they will be provided.
30. Fund Management Opportunity. Among the top 20 participants of the Investa Trading Cup 2021, at least 10 traders will be chosen by one of our strategic partners to manage and trade the internal funds of the said partner amounting to USD 20,000.00 or USD 10,000.00 depending on the performance during the competition. Among the top 1-10, a minimum of 5 traders will be chosen to handle USD 20,000.00 and among the top 11-20, at least 5 traders will be selected to handle USD 10,000.00 worth of funds to trade in the financial markets. This is not a requirement for the top 20, but an opportunity to grow your capital if chosen. A zoom session with Investa, the strategic partner, and the Top 20 participants will be held after the Trading Cup 2021 Defense, to get to know the partner and learn more about the opportunity as the complete terms of the Program will be disclosed to the participants after they qualify in Event Partner’s suitability test.
31. About Taxes. Gentle reminder that our competition prizes are subject to final tax of 20% except if the amount of the prize is Php 10,000.00 or less which shall be subjected to normal tax.
32. Joining the Investagrams Trading Cup 2021: Ready Set Trade means that you agree with all the clauses mentioned above.