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Investment Portfolio Case Competition

Held Virtually Friday, February 6, 2026

Organized by:

The Cornell Investment Portfolio Case Competition is an intercollegiate portfolio design competition. It creates awareness of portfolio management careers and facilitate students’ networking and recruiting opportunities in the field with sponsoring firms.

The competition is designed to promote analysis and investment strategy development in private wealth, retirement, endowment/foundation asset management, portfolio construction and risk management.

Each school will send a team of three to four first‑year graduate or 1st–3rd year PhD students to present their investment case and portfolio recommendations to judges.

Students will have 10 days to research the case, will make a 10-minute presentation, respond to 10 minutes of questions and are required to provide a two-page summary to judges.

Participating students’ resumes will be distributed to past sponsoring firms.

Why Students Should Participate

  • Compete in a unique investment challenge that is different than popular stock picking and pitching competitions.
  • Experience the intensity, depth and breadth of questions posed by top investment professionals — the kinds of questions asked daily in the investment business.
  • Network with investment industry professionals — IPCC judges, sponsors and competitors who will soon enter the investments field.
  • Practice creative analyses and prepare concise, compelling presentations by competing against peers from the country’s top master’s programs. Competition is limited to a set number of teams, which will be chosen based on application content from all applications received.

Who Should Participate

  • First-year MBA students, first-year finance master’s students, or first-, second-, and third-year PhD students interested in pursuing careers in investment management.
  • This competition is ideal for students interested in portfolio construction and management.

Recommended Selection Process

We encourage schools to distribute information about this event broadly on campus, particularly to the investment clubs, and hold internal competitions to determine their teams. Two teams from one university may apply and may be selected to attend as long as members of the teams attend different programs and there is sufficient space.

Contact Us

The Parker Center for Investment Research

Cornell SC Johnson College of Business
289 Statler Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
Phone: (607) 255-7313
Fax: (607) 255-0506
Email: cornell_ipcc@cornell.edu