Being the Local Host of the CFA Institute Research Challenge (the “Challenge”), CFA Society Hong Kong would like to seek our members’ interest in serving as industry mentors and graders.
The Challenge is an annual initiative designed to promote best practices in equity research among the next generation of analysts. It is a competition between university-sponsored teams that conduct research on a designated publicly traded company, prepare a written report on the selected company, and present their findings to a panel of judges. The competition consists of four levels: Local, Sub-Regional, Regional, and Global. Winners at the Local level advance to compete against teams within their geographic region at the Sub-Regional and Regional levels. Winning teams at the Regional level then go on to compete at the Global level, where one team is designated as the ultimate winner. Throughout the Challenge, all participants are introduced to and expected to adhere to the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct.
Mentors
Each team, consisting of 3-5 students (including undergraduate and graduate students), will be assigned an industry mentor who will guide them throughout the research process and provide feedback on their company analysis report.
We are looking for volunteers who are:
- Preferably sell-side analysts with more than 5 years of working experience (preferably CFA charterholders).
- Enthusiastic about teaching best practices and promoting ethical decision-making to the next generation of financial professionals.
- Willing to attend the subject company’s presentation with the team(s) (approximately 2-2.5 hours).
- Ready to contribute 6-10 hours (excluding the company presentation) to provide guidance to the team(s) in preparing their investment research report. These hours would include emails and phone calls.
- Mentors will be eligible to receive 6-10 CPT credit hours (recognized by the Securities and Futures Commission) at the end of the event (the actual number of credit hours will depend on the number of teams assigned).
Graders
Graders will review and provide feedback on the written research reports for the Hong Kong Local Final of the Challenge. Graders can be analysts, portfolio managers, or other professionals with experience in either preparing or reading sell-side research. As a grader, your role will involve reviewing reports and scoring them based on a predetermined point system. Each grader may be assigned 5-8 investment research reports to review, where they will score each section and provide constructive comments to the teams regarding their reports.
We are looking for volunteers who are:
- Preferably sell-side analysts with more than 5 years of working experience (preferably CFA charterholders).
- Enthusiastic about promoting ethical decision-making to the next generation of financial professionals.
- Graders will be eligible to receive 6-8 CPT credit hours (recognized by the Securities and Futures Commission) for the year 2025 (the actual number of credit hours will depend on the number of reports to be graded).
Timeline
| June 2024 | Invitation to Hong Kong & Macau Universities |
| 10 Oct 2024 | Opening Ceremony |
| mid-Nov 2024 | Subject Listed Company Presentation |
| Nov 2024 – Jan 2025 | Students to work on the investment research reports |
| 6 Jan 2025 | Students to submit research reports for grading |
| 7-17 Jan 2025 (2 weeks) | Graders to review and score the reports |
| 17 Jan 2025 | Graders complete scoring |
| 21 Jan 2025 | Announcing the top 5 finalist teams |
| 15 Feb 2025 | Report Presentation and Award Ceremony |
The success of the Challenge relies on the dedication and expertise of our volunteers.
If you are interested in becoming a volunteer industry mentor or grader, please click HERE to provide us with some details about your professional experience. The deadline for submission is 20 September 2024 (Friday). More information about the event will be provided at a later date.