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Investa Pro League Round 1 Competition Rules And Mechanics

Welcome to the first ever INVESTA PRO LEAGUE

IT’S TIME TO CHALLENGE YOURSELF

Whether it’s bull market, bear market, or if there are black swan events, the market continues to move forward. The question is, do you have what it takes to thrive in any market environment?

The Investa Pro League is open to ALL. The competition will run for ONE (1) MONTH from June 15, 2020 until July 17, 2020.

Winners and Prizes:

The top three (3) participants with the highest account value at the end of the trading round will be announced as the winners.

Each winner will receive a corresponding cash prize as follows:

1st Place: PHP 25,000.00
2nd Place: PHP 15,000.00
3rd Place: PHP 10,000.00

MECHANICS

1. Registration Process:

A. You must have an Investagrams account. If you don’t have one yet, you can sign-up here for FREE.
B. Anyone can join the competition. Participants may register until June 14 (Sunday), before the competition officially begins on June 15 (Monday).
C. Registration comes along with a subscription of InvestaPro and InvestaPrime to help you have an edge on your trading game.
D. Complete your payment through Credit/Debit Card, Bank Deposit/Transfer, 7–Eleven (Coins.ph), M-Lhuillier, or Cebuana Lhuillier. You will be notified once your payment has been confirmed.
E. Validation of ID. From your Transaction Invoice, or when you click on “Investa Pro League 2020” competition room under the Virtual Trade tab in Investagrams, you will be led to an instructions page in order to validate your identity. If you haven’t uploaded your Proof of Identity yet, please do so, as this is a required step for all participants. Once approved, you will receive a notification and your Proof of Identity under Account Settings will already be marked as Completed. Access to the official competition room will be granted.
F. Important note: Only one (1) entry and account per person is allowed. If you have more than one (1) account to join the competition, you will be disqualified immediately.

Click here to proceed to registration: http://invs.st/InvestaProLeague

2. Investa PRO League will be accessed through the Investagrams Virtual Trading Platform (https://www.investagrams.com/vTrade) and participants will start with Php 100,000.00 virtual money to trade.

3. Participants can only trade liquid and actively trading stocks (we have filtered out which stocks fit this criteria) and have taken out illiquid names that have wide spreads that can be easily abused. The whole stock list can be accessed once you are accepted into the competition. The tradable stock list can be changed.

4. Upon buying a stock, you can only sell it after 20 minutes. This will protect the competition against ‘rinse-and-repeat’ abuses on illiquid stocks that are not realistically in-line with real market mechanics.

5. To promote diversification, maximum exposure in a single stock can only be 1/3 or 33.33% of the portfolio. This requires the participant to buy at least 3 different stocks should they want to fully invest their portfolio. The system won’t allow you to allocate more than 33.33% in a single stock.

6. Buying and Selling Conditions. 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 new LIMIT ORDERS. By using Limit Orders, you won’t need to watch the market the whole day in order to transact in the market.

  • Buy – You can buy the same stock multiple times within a day.
  • Sell – You can only sell the same stock two (2) times in a day. This will be strictly observed in order to avoid abuse. This includes selling in TRANCHES. Example: If you bought 1000 shares of $SMPH at 29 then sold 300 shares at 29.10, then you have only one (1) sell transaction left for $SMPH within the day.

7. Holding period for all stocks

  • We will be applying the twenty (20) minute time lock for taking profits to ALL STOCKS to avoid widespread and rinse-repeat trades. There are instances where specific names are simply bought due to the 2-2.5% widespread sold after 5 minutes once the stock has been ticked up.
  • There will be no timelock or restrictions when selling at a loss.

8. 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.

9. Initial Public Offering (IPO). All upcoming IPOs that will happen while the Investa Pro League is on-going will be added on its SECOND (2nd) trading day.

10. 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%.

11. 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 player 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 player 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 player 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 player that is proven to repeat this kind of behavior shall be disqualified.

12. 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.

13. Trading Hours: Weekdays from 9:30AM – 1:00PM (This is the current PH trading hours and will be changed once the enhance community quarantine is lifted. Meaning, you can’t trade during off-hours and on weekends.)

14. Participant rankings are constantly updated every 10-minutes and automatically ranked by Investagrams system according to net profit gain/loss.

15. At the end of the competition, the participants with the highest net profits will win. The top 1 to 3 participants shall be announced the official winners.

16. 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 Investa Pro League. Announcements shall be made if there are any changes. Rest assured, we prioritize keeping the competition as FAIR as possible to all participants.

17. Ignorance of the rules is no excuse. All participants are expected to have read and understood the rules and mechanics of Investa Pro League. These are published for the participants’ information and protection. Ignorance of these rules and mechanics is not an acceptable excuse for violation.

18. Joining the Investa Pro League means that you agree with all the clauses mentioned above.

19. If you are part of the Top 3 winners, the FINAL DEADLINE to claim your cash prize is on AUGUST 31, 2020. The cash prize will not be given anymore past this date.

Click here to join Investa Pro League 2020!

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