Judging for both the morning and the afternoon sessions will be based on the following criteria:
Quality of Investment Idea (How investable is this idea? Did the team articulate a clear thesis? Did the team demonstrate their variant view?)
Written Material / Slide Deck (Does the material defend the thesis articulated using evidence and high quality research? Was there creative, value-added research? Did they follow the formatting guidelines? Did they clearly explain the business and industry dynamics?)
Presentation / Delivery (Did the team speak clearly and deliver a compelling presentation? Did the team hit the important points of the presentation and present the investment case well? Were all team members involved in the presentation?)
Question and Answer (Did the team respond accurately to the questions asked? Did the answers support the thesis or address concerns about risks fairly? Did they recognize areas for future research? Did the team honestly indicate when they didn't know the answer to a question?)
Each judge will rank every team 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 / delivery" 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.
Judges from the 2018 competition came from the following firms: Capital Group, Causeway Capital Management, T. Rowe Price, ClearBridge Investments, Fidelity Investments, Surveyor Capital, and AllianceBernstein.