We're excited to announce Alpha Five, our first algorithm development competition! Since we launched Alpha Streams the community have asked what institutions were looking for, and institutions have sought very specific alpha development. Finding the match was a slow, manual process. With the competition, we're aiming to bridge this gap.

Alpha Five is sponsored by an institutional client. They are providing a unifying theme to help guide community Alpha Streams development and incentivising the development with a prize. They have sponsored an award of $27,500 to see what the community can discover in the following universes of liquid ETFs:

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•    The Volatility Universe includes high volatility ETFs, low volatility ETFs, and products that directly follow other volatility products. 
•    The Precious Metals Universe includes products related to metal mining and sufficiently liquid commodities like gold, silver, and platinum. 
•    The Energy Universe contains products related to oil, natural gas, and clean energy. 
•    The Technology Universe contains funds for the most liquid technology stocks, and bear technology products. 
•    The US Treasury universe contains government bonds and various treasury notes vehicles of various expiry periods. 

Alphas submitted should be long-only and operate on one of the universes above. They should be active each day, with a low drawdown and quick recovery time in the event of a drawdown.

Submissions open October 1st and run until the November 1st. You can apply through the normal Alpha Streams submission process by selecting the competition tag in the wizard!