The National Association of Active Investment Managers (NAAIM), is pleased to announce the Call For Papers for its annual whitepaper competition. In its 9th year, the NAAIM Founders Award for Advances in Active Investment Management (formerly known as the NAAIM Wagner Award) is a research competition that draws entries from all over the world in the areas of computational finance, advanced algorithms, tactical investment management techniques, strategic investment strategies and numerous other topics, all designed to further our knowledge of the active investing world.

Previous winners have included the following:

  • 2016 – “Multivariate Regression Analysis: Considering the Relevance of Past Performance” Spencer Seggebruch, R.T. Jones Capital Equities Management, Inc.
  • 2015 – “Lumber: Worth Its Weight in Gold ‐ Offense and Defense in Active Portfolio Management” Charlie Bilello and Michael A. Gayed, Pension Partners, LLC
  • 2014 – “Know Your System! – Turning Data Mining from Bias to Benefit through System Parameter Permutation” Dave Walton, StatisTrade, LLC.

The competition is open to anyone involved in financial services including academic faculty, researchers and graduate students, investment advisors, analysts and other financial professionals.

The paper that demonstrates the best advancement in active investment management, as deemed by NAAIM’s judges, will receive a prize package worth up to $5000 in cash and travel. Deadline to submit your paper is Tuesday, February 28, 2017.

The NAAIM Founders Award competition has had over 175 papers submitted since its inception in 2009.

“ The NAAIM Founders Award is a prestigious competition, with a rigorous judging process in pursuit of the best paper annually. We encourage investment professionals and academia to review the Call for Papers to determine if their strategies, research, or techniques could meet the criteria and apply, “ said NAAIM Founders Award Chair Patrick Beaudan of Emotomy. “NAAIM members and the professional financial services community enjoy learning about the latest advances in active investment management.”

Papers need to focus on describing an investment technique, its pros and cons and the market conditions under which it is expected to fare well or poorly, or should explore topics in active investing that are of broad interest to the investment community. Active investing topics can involve making invest­ment decisions using technical analysis, quantitative analysis, etc. Papers can also address related topics such as position sizing techniques, money management approaches, scaling into and out of trades, exit strategies, etc.

The first-place Founders Award winner can choose one of the following prize packages:

  • $5000 cash award and the opportunity to present the paper topic as a webinar, or
  • $4000 cash award plus the opportunity to present the paper at the NAAIM Uncommon Knowledge annual conference April 30 – May 3, 2017 at the Hilton San Diego Beach Resort and Spa in San Diego, CA. Free conference attendance, coach domestic air travel and 2 nights of accommodations at the conference hotel will be provided for one author of the winning paper only.

IMPORTANT: By completing the brief “Intent to Submit” form, NAAIM will be able to notify you of any important deadlines coming soon or any changes that may occur to the competition guidelines.

To qualify for the competition, final papers (maximum 30 pages) together with a required 750-1000 word abstract must be submitted electronically to: info@naaim.org by Tuesday, February 28, 2017.

Awards will be announced by Monday, April 3. The name of the winning paper will be posted to the NAAIM web site for your reference and publicized by NAAIM.