The University of Kentucky 2024 Stock Pitch Competition

The Gatton College of Business and Economics is proud to announce the fourth University of Kentucky stock pitch competition in Spring 2024. It's an opportunity for students to carry out creative, valuable research in stock investing and to obtain real-world insights about business.

Sponsored by the Institute of Free Enterprise (ISFE) and E.S. Barr & Co., and organized by the Department of Finance and Quantitative Methods, the competition is open to all students enrolled full-time or part-time in undergraduate or master’s-level programs at the University of Kentucky as of November 17, 2023.

The competition will judged by a panel of industry experts. Team formations and mentoring requests must be submitted online by February 9, 2024. Teams requesting an industry mentor will be assigned one. To advance to the semi-final competition, a team must submit their choice of one stock that meets the selection criteria below, and a PowerPoint presentation by 11:59 pm EST on March 22, 2024.

Teams who pass the semi-final competition will be notified of the final competition rules and requirements, including deadline and procedure of uploading their final presentation file. All team members must present to the judges on April 11, 2024. Each team will give a strictly timed 10-minute presentation which will be followed by up to 20 minutes of Q&A. Winning teams will be selected based on presentation quality and the judging criteria. Winners will be announced, and an award ceremony will be held on April 11, 2024.

Prizes

First place prize: $4,000
Second place prize: $2,500
Third place prize: $1,500
Fourth place prize: $1,000

Team Formation

Each team will have 2-4 students. Participants will choose their own teammates. Team formations must be submitted online by 11:59 pm on February 9, 2024. Each participating team must submit the names of all team members and indicate if they like to be assigned a mentor. No stock selection needs to be made at the time of submitting teams. All team members whose names are submitted must be able to actively participate in the semi-final presentation to be considered for the final competition.

Online Application

Stock Selection

Teams can pitch a long or short positions and choose any common stock traded on an exchange and that has at least $1 million of daily volume (over a minimum of the 6-month period immediately before January 1, 2024). Over-the-counter stocks, ETFs, ETNs, closed-end funds, and other exchange-traded securities, including options, futures and currencies, are ineligible for the competition. If you have any questions about whether the security you wish to analyze is eligible, please email peter.trager@uky.edu.

Judging Criteria

Quality of investment idea: Is the idea investable? Was the team articulate? How well did the team elaborate their view that differs from the consensus view?
Quality of the presentation deck: How well did the team explain their analysis and assumptions to support their investment idea? Was there creative, value-added research? Did they present solid analysis of the business and industry dynamics?
Presentation: Were all team members involved in the presentation? Did the team deliver a compelling presentation within time limit? How well was the investment case presented?
Q&A: Did the team respond effectively to the questions? Did the answers support the investment idea or address concerns about risks fairly? Did they recognize areas for future research? When a team didn't know the answer, did they respond honestly?

Each judge will rank teams in these four categories, and each team's score will be averaged. The teams will then be ranked by average score (lowest rank-number average) on these four categories. In the event of a tie, the first tiebreaker will be ranking on the "quality of investment idea" category. If the tie remains, the next tiebreaker will be the ranking on the "presentation" category. If the tie remains, the third tiebreaker will be the ranking on the "question and answer" category. If the tie still remains, the judges will determine as a group at their discretion which team should be ranked higher.

Sample pitch reports can be found here.