We’re just over two weeks into the NDW Custom Model Competition.

We’re just over two weeks into the NDW Custom Model Competition, which began with the close of the second quarter. Thus far, it’s been a rocky road for our competitors as just one model shows a positive return with a gain of 0.18%, roughly in line with the performance of the S&P 500 over the period. All the other models are in the red at this point in the competition. There has been a bit of an unwind in momentum since the beginning of the competition – the iShares MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF (MTUM) is down more than 8% over the same period.  So, it’s not entirely surprising that many models have struggled. However, we still have about 10 weeks left in the competition so there is plenty of time for things to turn around. We will continue to share the leaderboard periodically throughout the competition. The top five performing teams out of all submitted strategies are shown in the table below.